Coelho Sara, Bonatti Sophia Marlene, Doering Elena, Paskaleva-Yankova Asena, Stephan Achim
Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal.
Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy.
Front Psychol. 2022 Jun 28;13:875680. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.875680. eCollection 2022.
The origin of moral agency is a much-debated issue. While rationalists or Kantians have argued that moral agency is rooted in reason, sentimentalists or Humeans have ascribed its origin to empathic feelings. This debate between rationalists and sentimentalists still stands with respect to persons with mental disorders, such as individuals diagnosed with mild forms of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), without intellectual impairment. Individuals with ASD are typically regarded as moral agents, however their ability for empathy remains debated. The goal of this paper is to investigate the mechanisms of moral actions in people with ASD, by finding arguments for the origin of their moral actions, supporting either the sentimentalist or the rationalist view of the dispute. We propose to revisit the debate using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to study the autobiographies of individuals with High-Functioning Autism (HFA) and Asperger Syndrome (AS). While conducting the systematic analysis of 10 autobiographies, we re-examined both the rationalist and the sentimentalist positions, considering the links between empathic feelings and moral agency. The investigation of the temporal dimensions of emotional experiences, an aspect overlooked by previous research, indicated that individuals with ASD empathize with others, but in different ways as compared to neurotypicals. A relationship between emotional experience and the type of moral agency exhibited by individuals with forms of ASD was established. As a consequence, our analyses support the sentimentalist stance on moral action.
道德能动性的起源是一个备受争议的问题。理性主义者或康德主义者认为道德能动性植根于理性，而情感主义者或休谟主义者则将其起源归因于共情感受。关于精神障碍患者，比如被诊断患有轻度自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）且无智力障碍的个体，理性主义者和情感主义者之间的这场争论依然存在。患有ASD的个体通常被视为道德主体，然而他们的共情能力仍存在争议。本文的目的是通过寻找支持情感主义或理性主义争议观点的道德行为起源论据，来探究ASD患者道德行为的机制。我们建议使用解释现象学分析方法重新审视这场争论，以研究高功能自闭症（HFA）和阿斯伯格综合征（AS）患者的自传。在对10篇自传进行系统分析时，我们重新审视了理性主义和情感主义的立场，考虑了共情感受与道德能动性之间的联系。对情感体验时间维度的研究（这是先前研究中被忽视的一个方面）表明，ASD患者能够对他人产生共情，但与神经典型个体的方式不同。我们确立了情感体验与患有不同形式ASD个体所表现出的道德能动性类型之间的关系。因此，我们的分析支持了情感主义在道德行为上的立场。
