Intent’s role in moral responses to White actors’ behaviors toward Black and White targets

Moral philosophy and psychology often emphasize intent’s role in moral evaluations but typically do not incorporate perspectives from the social psychology of intergroup relations. Therefore, current work on morality has limited capacity to understand how people evaluate behaviors in race-related contexts and how these judgments may vary across participant race. We report three studies examining how Black and White adults view intent in vignettes describing White actors’ behaviors toward White, versus Black, targets. Participants indicated how moral behaviors were, how much they would punish behaviors, and how much perpetrators’ intentions mattered. White participants prioritized intent more when evaluating White actors’ behaviors toward Black, versus White, targets. This result occurred for both moral evaluations (Study 1) and punishment decisions (Study 2). When deciding how much to punish White actors’ behaviors toward Black targets, White participants also prioritized intent more than did Black participants (Study 2). Finally, White participants showed less punitiveness overall than did Black participants (Studies 2–3). Together, these results clarify moral evaluations of White actors’ behaviors toward Black versus White targets and, by incorporating perspectives from both Black and White participants, help philosophy and psychology speak to a greater diversity of human experience.