Higher agency confers reduced perceived patiency even for moral saints.

Evidence

Although such thought experiments have a fairly obvious answer, it is unclear to what extent people rely on perceptions of agency and patiency when dividing nondairy outcomes. Would a person with higher agency be given more negative outcomes and fewer positive outcomes in general because of his or her reduced sensitivity to pain and pleasure? Although it would be unsurprising to find that bad agents were harmed relative to normal people (who would not give pain to a serial killer over an average person?), more interesting is whether people would be more inclined to give pain to a good agent because of this person’s perceived insensitivity. Would people spontaneously choose to give pain to Mother Theresa if forced to choose between her and an average person? Similarly, would the Dalai Lama be denied pleasure because his greater agency would lead to reduced perceptions of his patiency? — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 135

Categorization

• XREF: The question of denormalizing a revered moral exemplar by converting their position into agential terms maps onto the reader’s plan to test recategorizing a religious group as ‘ideological’ — stripping patiency-laden awe to expose an agent whose sensitivity reads lower. — connects to: Moral agency and patiency perceptions are inversely related, not linked. — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting: Divergent…, 3; Moral agency specifically, not general agency, reduces perceived moral patiency.; Perceived moral agency and perceived patiency may trade off inversely even at extreme levels. — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting: Divergent…, 59 (+5 more)
• ADDENDUM: The trade-off logic here (more agent = less patient = more harm-worthy, less pleasure-worthy) parallels how sacrifice gets rationalized toward figures seen chiefly as agents in ‘On Sacrifice’ — the sacrificial victim is perceived as hard to hurt.
• SEED: Possible angle: the moral-typecasting tension of the saint-as-agent — Mother Theresa or the Dalai Lama denied ordinary pleasures precisely because their perceived moral strength makes them seem insensitive — as an essay on how elevation strips patiency.
• QUESTION: This setup directly anticipates Study methodology — worth chasing the actual paradigm used to test whether people give pain to Mother Theresa vs an average person.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting: Divergent…, 135

Broader Connections

• Perceived moral agency and perceived patiency may trade off inversely even at extreme levels. #expands (0.90) — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 59
• Perceiving someone as a moral agent reduces perceived moral patiency. #expands (0.88) — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 1
• Perceived moral agency uniquely suppresses perceived victimhood, separable from general agency #corroborates (0.85) — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 105
• Enhancing perceived patiency reduces perceived agency, and vice versa #expands (0.82) — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 78
• Moral agency specifically, not general agency, reduces perceived moral patiency. #qualifies (0.78)
• Only moral agency, not instrumental competence, suppresses perceived patiency #qualifies (0.75) — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 99