Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

People often endorse explanations in terms of purposes or goals (e.g., pencils exist so that people can write with them), evenwhen these teleological explanations are scientifically unwarranted (e.g., water exists so that life can survive on Earth). Inthe present research, we explore teleological endorsement in a novel domainhuman purposeand its relationship to moraljudgments. Across two studies, we find evidence that people endorse the claim that humans exist for a purpose (e.g.,to procreate, to help others) and that these beliefs relate to moral judgments against purpose violations (e.g., condemningthose who do not procreate, or do not help others). We also find evidence of a bi-directional causal relationship: teleologicalclaims about a species result in moral condemnation of purpose violations, and stipulating that an action is immoralincreases endorsement that the species exists for that purpose.