Morality in Our Mind and Across Cultures and Politics.

An argument that moral reasoning plays a crucial role in moral judgment through episodes of rational reflection that have established patterns for automatic judgment foundation. Rationalists about the psychology of moral judgment argue that moral cognition has a rational foundation. Recent challenges to this account, based on findings in the empirical psychology of moral judgment, contend that moral thinking has no rational basis. In this book, Hanno Sauer argues that moral reasoning does play a role in moral judgment—but not, as is commonly supposed, because conscious reasoning produces moral judgments directly. Moral reasoning figures in the acquisition, formation, maintenance, and reflective correction of moral intuitions. Sauer proposes that when we make moral judgments we draw on a stable repertoire of intuitions about what is morally acceptable, which we have acquired over the course of our moral education—episodes of rational reflection that have established patterns for automatic judgment foundation. Moral judgments are educated and rationally amenable moral intuitions. Sauer engages extensively with the empirical evidence on the psychology of moral judgment and argues that it can be shown empirically that reasoning plays a crucial role in moral judgment. He offers detailed counterarguments to the anti-rationalist challenge (the claim that reason and reasoning play no significant part in morality and moral judgment) and the emotionist challenge (the argument for the emotional basis of moral judgment). Finally, he uses Joshua Greene's Dual Process model of moral cognition to test the empirical viability and normative persuasiveness of his account of educated intuitions. Sauer shows that moral judgments can be automatic, emotional, intuitive, and rational at the same time.

Universal Principles, Global Cooperation, and Moral Disagreement:A Natural Law Account Joseph Boyle (bio) I. Introduction Since ancient times a number of Western moral views have been described or self-described as "natural law" ethics. These views claim that there are universal moral principles and norms. Moral principles, according to natural law views, are somehow "natural," and, thus, are the common property of those who share human nature. That implies that the principles of the natural law are in principle accessible to all humans. Those who accept this ethical approach are not in full agreement about the precise sense and reference of the expression "natural law" or about the specific moral norms justified by the principles of the natural law. I do not here propose to address these differences among natural law theorists. Instead, I will sketch the approach to universal moral principles that I, as a philosopher working within the natural law tradition, think correct. My approach is within the broad tradition of natural law theorizing inspired by St. Thomas Aquinas; it is the version of Thomistic natural law called the "new natural law theory."1 Natural law theories include a conception of the nature and purpose of morality. Two closely related theses comprise the key elements of this conception. The first is that moral principles, and their implications in moral norms and judgments, are propositional realities having logical relationships and normative content that can be formulated, debated and judged either correct or incorrect. Thus, natural law theory is a form of ethical rationalism; moral judgments are a form of knowledge. The second thesis holds that moral principles are universal in two senses: they are applicable to all human actions, and they are accessible to all human beings capable of the reasoning needed for choice and action. Some immediate implications of these theses are obviously important for thinking about moral diversity, difference and consensus. First, the universal applicability of moral principles implies that there are no human actions, however complex their circumstances and obscure their significance, that are in principle immune from moral assessment. Second, the universal accessibility of the principles of the natural law implies that moral norms, customs, and practices are not finally a matter of local custom or particular circumstance. Criticism in the light of accessible moral principle is always possible. Third, the conjunction of the universal accessibility of natural law and its ethical rationalism makes the possibility of recognizing mistaken moral judgment and practice more than an abstract possibility, but, instead, an ordinary, intelligible aspect of moral life and thought. Any person capable of practical reasoning and choice can access enough of moral principle to criticize his or her own moral beliefs and those of his or her society. That capability is obviously ethically significant. Its availability in reflection to people generally implies that they are not simply stuck with the moral limitations and corruption of their culture, upbringing, and life experience; they have the resources for critical judgment and autonomous action based on that reflection. These claims about the nature of morality may now seem quaint given some defining features of post-modernity. The conjunction of two features of our post-modern world poses a special problem for natural law theory: (1) the rapidly emerging globalization of economic, social and political life; and (2) the pervasiveness of post-modern relativism, and "local-only" conceptions of morality. These conceptions reject the universalist theses I listed above. But they do so in a globalized context calling for moral guidance for the world-wide interactions that transcend the moralities of local communities and their members. Together these features challenge the core convictions of natural law theory. In this contribution, I will briefly articulate and defend these strong natural law claims about the nature of morality, and will bring natural law theory to bear on the challenge posed to them by the realities of our post-modern and globalized situation. I will develop this account as follows: In part II, I will summarize the account of the human good that underlies morality according to natural law theories that follow Aquinas's classic treatment. In Part III, I will sketch an account of how universal moral principles are justified...

The two studies reported here demonstrated that a combination of anger and disgust predicts moral outrage. In Study 1, anger toward moral transgressions (sexual assault, funeral picketing) predicted moral outrage only when it co-occurred with at least moderate disgust, and disgust predicted moral outrage only when it co-occurred with at least moderate anger. In Study 2, a mock-jury paradigm that included emotionally disturbing photographs of a murder victim revealed that, compared to anger, disgust was a more consistent predictor of moral outrage (i.e., it predicted moral outrage at all levels of anger). Furthermore, moral outrage mediated the effect of participants’ anger on their confidence in a guilty verdict—but only when anger co-occurred with at least a moderate level of disgust—whereas moral outrage mediated the effect of participants’ disgust on their verdict confidence at all levels of anger. The interactive effect of anger and disgust has important implications for theoretical explanations of moral outrage, moral judgments in general, and legal decision making.

Perceived intent is a pivotal factor in moral judgement: intentional moral violations are considered more morally wrong than accidental ones. However, a body of recent research argues that intent is less important for moral judgements of impure acts – that it, those acts that are condemned because they elicit disgust. But the literature supporting this claim is limited in multiple ways. We conducted a new test of the hypothesis that condemnation of purity violations operates independently from intent. In Study 1, participants judged the wrongness of moral violations that were either intentional or unintentional and were either harmful (e.g., stealing) or impure (e.g., public defecation). Results revealed a large effect of intent on moral wrongness ratings that did not vary across harmful and disgusting scenarios. In Study 2, a registered report, participants judged the wrongness of disgust-eliciting moral violations that were either mundane and dyadic (e.g., serving contaminated food) or abnormal and self-directed (e.g., consuming urine). Results revealed a large effect of intent on moral wrongness judgements that did not vary across mundane and abnormal scenarios. Findings challenge the claim that moral judgements about purity violations rely upon unique psychological mechanisms that are insensitive to information about the wrongdoer's mental state.

The altruistic orientation and moral judgment of 811 Chinese subjects were studied. Three hypotheses were examined: (1) The altruistic orientation of an actor at any level of moral judgment is larger to a recipient of closer relationship in any situation; (2) an actor at a higher level of moral judgment would be more willing to sacrifice their life for any recipient than an actor at a lower level of moral judgment; (3) an actor at a higher level of moral judgment would be less willing to: (a) Give up rescuing a stranger and turn to rescue close relatives or best friends; or (b) help close relatives or best friends by covering up their crime than an actor at a lower level of moral judgment. The empirical findings supported clearly the aforementioned hypotheses.

M U UCH OF T H E R E C E N T scholarship on development of female self has focused on relationality as a defining characteristic of feminine (Jordan et al. 1991), that quality of femaleness that distinguishes women from men in all aspects of human endeavor, including parenting, intimacy, moral judgment, and scientific inquiry (Gilligan 1982; Rubin 1983; Keller 1985). emphasis on significance of female relationality can be understood largely as a response to androcentric interpretations of human personality and social morality in which developmental models of autonomy and separateness ascribe to women role of less mature, less moral, and less individuated sex (Gilligan 1982). Thus, by contrast, feminist social psychology emphasizes significance of attachment for female development and value of relational self (see, e.g., Jordan 1991; Miller 1991). Within this paradigm, scholars have stressed importance of empathy as the process through which one's experienced sense of basic connection and similarly to other humans is established (Jordan 1991, 69). In construction of theoretical models of empathic connection, mother-daughter relationship has been developmental model through which feminist scholars have sought to explain child's ability to experience inner state of another. Writing on self-in-relation theory, Janet L. Surrey describes significance of mother-daughter relationship: The ability of mother to listen and respond, empathize or 'mirror' child's feelings has been well described by Winnicott.., Kohut..., and others; it has also been seen as beginning of development of experience of self. Here we are describing girl's

The rationality and consistency tests defended in Chapter 6 can be used to discredit and rule out certain moral principles and moral judgments and, thus, indirectly establish the truth of certain other moral judgments and moral principles. This chapter argues that there is a large overlap or convergence in the moral judgments about lying and deception of people whose judgments satisfy rationality/consistency requirements. The moral principles and moral judgments about lying and deception that survive rationality and consistency tests support a moral presumption against harmful lying and deception that is at least as strong as that endorsed by (welfare maximizing versions of) act-utilitarianism. Moral principles and moral judgments that claim or imply that lying or deception is permissible in cases in which it harms others and the harm it causes outweighs the benefits it produces fail rationality/consistency tests. In addition, the view that lying and/or deception are always wrong no matter what does not survive consistency and rationality tests.

According to rationalism regarding the psychology of moral judgment, people’s moral judgments are generally the result of a process of reasoning that relies on moral principles or rules. By contrast, intuitionist models of moral judgment hold that people generally come to have moral judgments about particular cases on the basis of gut-level, emotion-driven intuition, and do so without reliance on reasoning and hence without reliance on moral principles. In recent years the intuitionist model has been forcefully defended by Jonathan Haidt. One important implication of Haidt’s model is that in giving reasons for their moral judgments people tend to confabulate – the reasons they give in attempting to explain their moral judgments are not really operative in producing those judgments. Moral reason-giving on Haidt’s view is generally a matter of post hoc confabulation. Against Haidt, we argue for a version of rationalism that we call ‘morphological rationalism.’ We label our version ‘morphological’ because according to it, the information contained in moral principles is embodied in the standing structure of a typical individual’s cognitive system, and this morphologically embodied information plays a causal role in the generation of particular moral judgments. The manner in which the principles play this role is via ‘proceduralization’ – such principles operate automatically. In contrast to Haidt’s intuitionism, then, our view does not imply that people’s moral reason-giving practices are matters of confabulation. In defense of our view, we appeal to what we call the ‘nonjarring’ character of the phenomenology of making moral judgments and of giving reasons for those judgments.

Machines are becoming more capable of substantively interacting with human beings as part of simple dyads and within the confines of our complex social structures. Thought must be given to how their behavior might be regulated with respect to the norms and conventions by which we live. This is certainly true for the military domain [1], but is no less true for eldercare, health care, disaster relief and law enforcement; all areas where robotic systems are poised to make tremendous impact in the near future. But how should we inculcate sensitivity to normative considerations in the next generation of intelligent systems? I argue here for an approach to building moral machines grounded in cognitive architectural considerations, and specifically in the dynamics of how alternatives are represented and reasoned over. After examining some recent results in the empirical literature on human moral judgment, I suggest some desiderata for knowledge representation and reasoning tools that may offer the means to capture some of the foundations of human moral cognition.

This study aims to dismantle the écritures of infants, toddlers, and children used in the early childhood education field and deliberately use the term ‘children(어린이)’ to discuss the contribution of cultural anthropological perspectives and children’s studies, as well as the academic intersections and roles of qualitative research and cultural anthropology, by breaking away from existing discourses. In the past, research on children was viewed from the perspective of developmental studies and psychology, and thus children were viewed as universal and general passive objects. However, many cultural anthropological studies criticized the universality of children, viewing them as socialized differently depending on the cultural context in which they are placed. This positioning has led to a conceptual reestablishment of humans as beings with subjectivity beyond the concept of ‘vulnerable beings.’ Qualitative research can be said to be an academic intersection with cultural anthropology. Qualitative research, as a philosophical implementation method for understanding humans, emphasizes understanding cultural diversity and context. To this end, qualitative researchers need to reveal children’s daily lives through ‘thick descriptions’ and look at children as social actors by adding an ‘etic’ perspective to the ‘emic’ foundation. In order for the 3Es of ‘participant observation’, ‘in-depth interviews’, and ‘fieldwork’ for children to be practiced, they must be conducted on the basis of a correct understanding of children as beings and ethical awareness. Ultimately, researching children means revealing the invisible context of children’s lives, and to do this, it is necessary to listen to children’s voices and face their lives. When this is done, children’s research will become authentic research.

Moral rationalism provides one prominent way of securing moral objectivism. If morality derives from reason, then morality might enjoy an objective basis. In this chapter, two rationalist claims are distinguished: a conceptual claim and an empirical claim. The conceptual claim is that it is a conceptual truth that moral requirements are rational requirements; the empirical claim is that human moral judgment is produced by rational cognitive mechanisms. This chapter argues that both claims are problematic. The conceptual claim is threatened by the conceptual possibility of a rational amoralist. The empirical claim is insulated from such worries but it is undermined by evidence that psychopaths apparently do have a seriously disturbed capacity for moral judgment.The most plausible explanation of this deficit does not fit with an Empirical Rationalist account.

In a well-known series of articles, Norman Daniels has drawn a contrast between wide reflective equilibrium and a more traditional method of theory acceptance in ethics that would be employed by a sophisticated moral intuitionist. The more traditional method is geared towards achieving a narrow equilibrium, or ‘an ordered pair of (a) a set of considered moral judgments acceptable to a given person P at a given time, and (b) a set of moral principles that economically systematizes (a).’ Although we might achieve narrow reflective equilibrium by deducing particular moral judgments from self-evident moral principles, the more plausible approach is to start from our particular moral judgments. Here we begin by screening our intial moral judgments to eliminate those in which we have little confidence and those made under circumstances conducive to error. We then search for general moral principles that best account for the remaining ‘considered’ moral judgments.

The puzzle of wrongless harms: Some potential concerns for dyadic morality and related accounts

Autonomous vehicles (AVs)-and accidents they are involved in-attest to the urgent need to consider the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI). The question dominating the discussion so far has been whether we want AVs to behave in a 'selfish' or utilitarian manner. Rather than considering modeling self-driving cars on a single moral system like utilitarianism, one possible way to approach programming for AI would be to reflect recent work in neuroethics. The agent-deed-consequence (ADC) model (Dubljević and Racine in AJOB Neurosci 5(4):3-20, 2014a, Behav Brain Sci 37(5):487-488, 2014b) provides a promising descriptive and normative account while also lending itself well to implementation in AI. The ADC model explains moral judgments by breaking them down into positive or negative intuitive evaluations of the agent, deed, and consequence in any given situation. These intuitive evaluations combine to produce a positive or negative judgment of moral acceptability. For example, the overall judgment of moral acceptability in a situation in which someone committed a deed that is judged as negative (e.g., breaking a law) would be mitigated if the agent had good intentions and the action had a good consequence. This explains the considerable flexibility and stability of human moral judgment that has yet to be replicated in AI. Thispaper examines the advantages and disadvantages of implementing the ADC model and how the model could inform future work on ethics of AI in general.

Right Is What that Benefits All, or that Which Is Morally Correct: An Enquiry on How Ethical Standards of Judgment (Consequentialism Vs Formalism) Complements the Effect of Empathy, Personal Values, and Personality Traits on Moral Cognition, and Conation Processes, Leading Towards Ethical Competence