After thinking about this I’m not sure AS entails an attraction to consequentialist morality so much as it does an attraction to consistent, axiom-based and systematized theories plus a willingness to ignore (or a lack of) situational and emotional reactions that contradict their systematized view. Consequentialism is just the obvious consistent and systematized view suggested by contemporary post-Enlightenment Western culture. I mean, unless the autism spectrum was empty prior to Bentham it seems likely people with AS were engaged in convoluted theological arguments and Natural law ethics during the middle ages. It is plausible Kant himself had AS. The only difference is that he was ignoring the intuition that it is okay to lie to compliment grandma’s poor cooking and to keep a murder from killing your friend where is today, people are ignoring the intuition that it isn’t okay to push the guy onto the track to stop a trolley or carve up the homeless guy for his organs.
I’d predict you’d see over-representation of AS among the followers of other contemporary philosophies that are highly consistent and axiom-based but also at odds with majority intuitions: For example, libertarian rights-based morality and Objectivism.
Yes, I agree. But this means that you will, in fact, see an empirical correlation between AS and consequentialism, and this is interesting and important; for example, it is a case where human cogno-diversity significantly affects axiology.
After thinking about this I’m not sure AS entails an attraction to consequentialist morality so much as it does an attraction to consistent, axiom-based and systematized theories plus a willingness to ignore (or a lack of) situational and emotional reactions that contradict their systematized view. Consequentialism is just the obvious consistent and systematized view suggested by contemporary post-Enlightenment Western culture. I mean, unless the autism spectrum was empty prior to Bentham it seems likely people with AS were engaged in convoluted theological arguments and Natural law ethics during the middle ages. It is plausible Kant himself had AS. The only difference is that he was ignoring the intuition that it is okay to lie to compliment grandma’s poor cooking and to keep a murder from killing your friend where is today, people are ignoring the intuition that it isn’t okay to push the guy onto the track to stop a trolley or carve up the homeless guy for his organs.
I’d predict you’d see over-representation of AS among the followers of other contemporary philosophies that are highly consistent and axiom-based but also at odds with majority intuitions: For example, libertarian rights-based morality and Objectivism.
Yes, I agree. But this means that you will, in fact, see an empirical correlation between AS and consequentialism, and this is interesting and important; for example, it is a case where human cogno-diversity significantly affects axiology.