Have you wondered where the claim that autistic people lack empathy came from?

@greenWhale

Haha no worries and thanks

@fishidwardrobe

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

@fishidwardrobe

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.

@fishidwardrobe

And it's occurring to me that perhaps the participants in the study were doing the same thing...

@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"…

@fishidwardrobe

Absolutely. And that was error no. 1

@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…"

@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

@KatyElphinstone The whole "lack of #empathy" idea builds on the #TheoryOfMind idea, which is rotten to the core. The basic paper applying it to #autistics (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, and Frith 1985) got the idea from an irredeemably flawed paper that had applied it to CHIMPANZEES[!] (Premack and Woodruff 1978). Both papers are hopelessly confused about what it even MEANS to say that a person — or an animal — has, or does not have, a "theory of mind". Both of these groups of researchers should have gotten clear on their concepts BEFORE conducting any experiments — and since they didn’t, both papers should have been refused publication.

@autistics

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.

@KatyElphinstone

@KatyElphinstone IMO the book where Sally read about it is to blame. But then again I like splitting hairs

@KatyElphinstone that's so revealing. i care more about the person who *died* because sally was objectively wrong. sally should feel responsible!

@KatyElphinstone@mas.to There is something to the blame vs responsibility view. The question was put to "high functioning" autistics, meaning that those were pretty good at masking, and anticipating the social discourse. The general experience and script is, the victim will be blamed .
That's how we get through life, by correctly anticipating what realistic reactions will be. From my experience, NT people react pretty badly when I apply my masking prediction scripts to hypothetical, isolated scenarios, because they think that society isn't like that. And suddenly we're painted "deficient", because our experience based scripting reflects a pretty awful picture of society instead of the lip service expected in hypothetical, artificial scenarios.

@KatyElphinstone

I agree with your analysis of the question and situation 100%

Unfortunately, researchers forming bad questions/scenarios re ethics/morality is the rule rather than the exception.

IME, researchers who have little to no background in philosophy tend to import a lot of unnoticed philosophical baggage into their work. Usually it goes unnoticed by peers who likewise lack the exposure.

@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

@fishidwardrobe @KatyElphinstone
Exactly, "blame" is an imprecise term used to mean be at fault, or have responsibility, or be a causal factor, or be a scapegoat, or combinations thereof.

@HighlandLawyer @KatyElphinstone right!

@KatyElphinstone

Everyone tends to have some basic first principles about morality that they are attached to prior to doing any reading in the subject.

For example: Intentions > consequences, Consequences > intentions, Individuals > collective, Collective > individuals, Tradition > relevant facts, Relevant facts > tradition, etc.

These intuitions can vary wildly between people who otherwise seem similar. Plus they often vary by context.

But how often are researchers aware of and accounting for their own intuitions? Unclear but I suspect it is proportional to the number of STEM grads who took a lot of humanities courses.

@KatyElphinstone
There's a common term in a lot of laws "knew or should reasonably have known" specifically to stop people turning a blind eye to something & claiming innocence by reason of not knowing.

@HighlandLawyer @fishidwardrobe

Exactly this.