Have you wondered where the claim that autistic people lack empathy came from?
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This would mean:
- responsibility should be proportional to agency, influence, and ability to change outcomes (this would be not just logical but also extremely useful),
- individual / exclusive moral condemnation or punishment is not required in all situations where harm occurs,
- responsibility to take appropriate action is not the same thing as blame, and conflating the two is an error.
️Autistic people, after all, are known for preferring logic (I certainly do).
And we’re also known for thinking outside the box – meaning that if we’re forced to make false decisions based on faulty assumptions, then we are quite likely to make the ‘wrong’ choice.
Interested to hear others’ thoughts on this! And I’ll be looking for another influential study to look closely at.
I really enjoy analyzing things!
End of thread. 🧵
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Autistic people, after all, are known for preferring logic (I certainly do).
And we’re also known for thinking outside the box – meaning that if we’re forced to make false decisions based on faulty assumptions, then we are quite likely to make the ‘wrong’ choice.
Interested to hear others’ thoughts on this! And I’ll be looking for another influential study to look closely at.
I really enjoy analyzing things!
End of thread. 🧵
@KatyElphinstone from my point of view, you're 100% correct in your take. They leave out a lot of information because they want to isolate the issue, but they forget that they need to do so in a way that doesn't make the test overly vague. It would have been simply resolved by defining 'blame' or by explicitly stating that punishment is part of assigning blame here.
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Autistic people, after all, are known for preferring logic (I certainly do).
And we’re also known for thinking outside the box – meaning that if we’re forced to make false decisions based on faulty assumptions, then we are quite likely to make the ‘wrong’ choice.
Interested to hear others’ thoughts on this! And I’ll be looking for another influential study to look closely at.
I really enjoy analyzing things!
End of thread. 🧵
Thank you for the thread im still processing all of it as it seems to ask some valid questions of responsibility, and collaboration of all of us I guess ?
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@KatyElphinstone from my point of view, you're 100% correct in your take. They leave out a lot of information because they want to isolate the issue, but they forget that they need to do so in a way that doesn't make the test overly vague. It would have been simply resolved by defining 'blame' or by explicitly stating that punishment is part of assigning blame here.
Yes, they could have designed the study with those things in mind - and should have, in my view. I've a feeling it would have been a rather different study if it had less simplicity but more clarity around the foundation concepts.
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Thank you for the thread im still processing all of it as it seems to ask some valid questions of responsibility, and collaboration of all of us I guess ?
Yes, exactly that 🥰
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Yes, they could have designed the study with those things in mind - and should have, in my view. I've a feeling it would have been a rather different study if it had less simplicity but more clarity around the foundation concepts.
@KatyElphinstone I'm not autistic, but I would have found it very difficult to answer the question too. I would probably have leaned to not wanting to assign blame because I dislike the way our society handles guilt and punishment, but that's not what they asked either. So again; bad test.
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@KatyElphinstone I'm not autistic, but I would have found it very difficult to answer the question too. I would probably have leaned to not wanting to assign blame because I dislike the way our society handles guilt and punishment, but that's not what they asked either. So again; bad test.
exactly, right? Thanks for answering like this, you've validated my reality
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@KatyElphinstone I'm not autistic, but I would have found it very difficult to answer the question too. I would probably have leaned to not wanting to assign blame because I dislike the way our society handles guilt and punishment, but that's not what they asked either. So again; bad test.
@KatyElphinstone also, sorry for forgetting to boost. I reacted and then forgot. Stupid ADHD.
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exactly, right? Thanks for answering like this, you've validated my reality
@KatyElphinstone oh, you're very welcome. I find your posts often very well thought through, so kudos.
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@KatyElphinstone also, sorry for forgetting to boost. I reacted and then forgot. Stupid ADHD.
Haha no worries and thanks
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Yes! That's a different way of expressing what I think is basically the same problem. What even is 'blame'? In your scenario, you do equate it with being responsible (which I think is fine, too).
And I love the bit "that doesn't mean she should be punished"
Yes, sigh, I wish they had asked the autists to point these things out
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Yes! That's a different way of expressing what I think is basically the same problem. What even is 'blame'? In your scenario, you do equate it with being responsible (which I think is fine, too).
And I love the bit "that doesn't mean she should be punished"
Yes, sigh, I wish they had asked the autists to point these things out
Just realising that what I like most about your take is that you're taking society's ruling that we have to talk about 'blame' (thank you, society) but then you're subverting it to something that actually makes more sense.
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Just realising that what I like most about your take is that you're taking society's ruling that we have to talk about 'blame' (thank you, society) but then you're subverting it to something that actually makes more sense.
And it's occurring to me that perhaps the participants in the study were doing the same thing...
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Yes! That's a different way of expressing what I think is basically the same problem. What even is 'blame'? In your scenario, you do equate it with being responsible (which I think is fine, too).
And I love the bit "that doesn't mean she should be punished"
Yes, sigh, I wish they had asked the autists to point these things out
@KatyElphinstone i'm going to assert my bias here and say that, as allistics, they assumed the meaning of "blame" they intended was the only one in play. "of *course* everyone will understand what we mean"…
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@KatyElphinstone i'm going to assert my bias here and say that, as allistics, they assumed the meaning of "blame" they intended was the only one in play. "of *course* everyone will understand what we mean"…
Absolutely. And that was error no. 1
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Just realising that what I like most about your take is that you're taking society's ruling that we have to talk about 'blame' (thank you, society) but then you're subverting it to something that actually makes more sense.
@KatyElphinstone i'm not sure i'm even subverting it (although i'll take that as a compliment!); it's just the standard autistic "okay, what do they *mean* by that? because it's not clear at all…"
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Autistic people, after all, are known for preferring logic (I certainly do).
And we’re also known for thinking outside the box – meaning that if we’re forced to make false decisions based on faulty assumptions, then we are quite likely to make the ‘wrong’ choice.
Interested to hear others’ thoughts on this! And I’ll be looking for another influential study to look closely at.
I really enjoy analyzing things!
End of thread. 🧵
@KatyElphinstone Wowww... I appreciate you posting this; I had never read about that study before, and it seems so incredibly full of pitfalls and flaws as to be utterly nonsensical.
So we get in trouble for not assigning blame? Or for assigning blame to someone who didn't have certain knowledge (basically blaming someone for ignorance, which I often do, tbh).
To me, it would be common sense not to swim with jellyfish if you didn't know what they were because certain species of them *are* dangerous. Making assumptions like that (I can swim safely because my friend said so) just seems like something that a lot of people do -- that perhaps we NDs often don't, as we are such information hounds?
I mean everybody else else's mileage might vary but... my first thought about jellyfish would be a certain percentage of them are dangerous, why swim with them at all? So the person who didn't have the knowledge and told their friend it was OK absolutely is at fault in my mind. I actually feel outrage that they did not have all the facts; I think a lot of people move through the world without any facts at all in their brains.
What about the mushroom question? Where does that even come from?! So the person giving the mushrooms to their supposed friend *thought* they were poisonous and gave them anyway? Why? And then they weren't poisonous so they get off the hook?! What the heck? Who would even think to do that? What kind of question even is that?
If that's not emotion about something -- even a situation that's completely unreal -- I don't know what it is. But it's emotion over injustice and incomplete information, not over behavior. These researchers completely overlooked that, and expected the very small cohort of autistic people (so small as to be statistically insignificant re an actual scientific study), got dinged for not having emotions about people. That is so very Neurotypical
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Autistic participants were more likely than non-autistic participants to say Janet was to blame, despite her good intentions.
This was interpreted as evidence of faulty moral reasoning or reduced empathy.
But that conclusion rests on three errors of logic built into the task itself, and not on evidence that autistic people care less about others.
️what kind of sociopath considers empathy for the dead a sign of disability?
we are dealing with the limited information we are given. we could speculate outside these parameters but that is most likely not reflected in the answers to choose.
it’s almost as if the test was created to prove cultural assumptions that say empathy for those we kill with our willful ignorance is a disability.
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Autistic participants were more likely than non-autistic participants to say Janet was to blame, despite her good intentions.
This was interpreted as evidence of faulty moral reasoning or reduced empathy.
But that conclusion rests on three errors of logic built into the task itself, and not on evidence that autistic people care less about others.
️@KatyElphinstone IMO the book where Sally read about it is to blame. But then again I like splitting hairs
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Autistic participants were more likely than non-autistic participants to say Janet was to blame, despite her good intentions.
This was interpreted as evidence of faulty moral reasoning or reduced empathy.
But that conclusion rests on three errors of logic built into the task itself, and not on evidence that autistic people care less about others.
️@KatyElphinstone I've always felt this case so strange because the concept of accidental manslaughter does exist in at least US law. Just because you didn't mean to, doesn't mean the person is less dead. And in this case the friend acted as an authority on a topic when they didn't have all the facts. In a different setting that could be medical malpractice or negligence. I'm not saying she needs to be in jail or anything, but some blame is certainly there and not seeing it feels wild to me
