The Knobe Lie

Karolina Sygula

The Knobe Effect, named after experimental philosopher Joshua Knobe, purports to show that when actions have negative side effects, people view these side effects as intentional, whereas if the side effects are positive, they are viewed as unintentional. For example, when a profit-seeking action is taken that has side effects that harm the environment, the environmental harm is seen as intentional, whereas if the same action leads to side effects that help the environment, the environmental benefit is seen as unintentional. Whether or not the Knobe Effect holds up to experimental scrutiny in the fullness of time, and under what scope, remain to be seen. But in the meantime, it hasn’t stopped some researchers from assuaging embarrassment at their extant religious brain-damage by misusing it to attempt to demonstrate that even their fully-functioning secular colleagues consider atheism negative and belief positive. And since they have quoted Daniel Dennett out of context to make it seem as though even he viewed belief as a benefit (infra), surely they won’t mind if l channel his preferred dialectical approach in my analysis of their putative findings?

“I listen to all these complaints about rudeness and intemperateness, and the opinion that I come to is that there is no polite way of asking somebody:  have you considered the possibility that your entire life has been devoted to a delusion? But that’s a good question to ask. Of course we should ask that question and of course it’s going to offend people. Tough.”

Daniel Dennett

Setting up a Knobe Effect experiment that asks participants whether in writing an article that either has the side effect of increasing atheism or belief in readers, a journalist intended either, would be a textbook case of petitio principii, were it not for the fact that most researchers who beg the question at least pretend that the question they’re asking makes sense. Valid Knobe Effect scenarios, as the one about environmentalism, supra, limit themselves to side effects that are as objectively positive or negative as possible, whereas assuming that atheism is harmful (calling it spiritual pollution, no less!) and that belief is beneficial is quite the framing! Or are the researchers suggesting that atheism and belief are neutral side effects for the purposes of the experiment, with respondents’ intuitive views about their intentionality conferring their moral standing, as if the Knobe Effect logically followed in reverse? The real question then becomes threefold: Are belief and atheism intentional or unintentional? Are belief and atheism intuitively good or bad? And what does intent say about the morality of an outcome, or is it morality that drives intent?

I’ve always found the ‘intense purposes’ malapropism of ‘intents and purposes’ very telling – if one’s purposes aren’t intense, what’s the point? With respect to belief as channeled through religion, every indication points to intentionality. Don’t many believers often say that without religion, they wouldn’t know how to be good? Why the need for all the proselytizing and indoctrination, especially as relates to isolating children in religious peer groups through denominational schools during their formative years? (Never mind all the rituals, cosplay and performative virtue-signaling.) Atheism, on the other hand, is no more intentional than is being forced to opt out of online cookies and trackers that shouldn’t be on the internet in the first place! Or to put it in terms that religious freaks will understand: Atheists are merely un-pressing pre-pressed buttons, and this doesn’t count as work according to believers who employ such hacks on the sabbath.

Why praise and reward good works if they’re incidental? Atheists don’t require a pat on the back to be good or to be punished for transgressions to prevent immoral acts because we know that being good is both rational and an easier way to live. If believers don’t see this, it’s because they’re the ones who are fundamentally immoral, and dangerous, so they need to work purposely and intensely to mitigate that fact. Is characterizing bad acts as intentional and good acts as a matter of course then a major reframing of the narrative in order to mitigate cognitive dissonance? People need to see themselves as nice and in control in order to maintain an even keel psychologically.

As relates to the article in the experiment that had the side effects of either increasing atheism or belief, have the researchers even considered the possibility that respondents identified atheism with intent and belief with lack of intent because intuitively, they viewed atheism as fundamental and belief as delusional, instead of as side effects, thereby undermining the premise of the Knobe Effect? It’s not unreasonable for that to be the case, given that the participants were denizens of some of the most secular countries on Earth. Not to mention that the hypothetical article in the scenario is devoid of content, beyond the statement that it is about religion, whereas the agent in the original case study about environmental externalities is a profiteer, someone who is generally seen in a negative light, except by psychopaths. Would the negative side effects of actions taken by an objectively good person performing good deeds be seen as equally intentional? Inquiring minds would like to Knobe…