DOCSLIB.ORG

Appendix: the Psychology of Habits

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Appendix: the Psychology of Habits Appendix: The Psychology of Habits In Chapter 1 I have presented a brief analysis of the psychology of habits in Plato and Aristotle to show the congruity between this psychology and the radical behaviorism of B. F. Skinner. This appendix will explain how passages in Aristotle and Seneca that may seem to give causal force to thoughts do not do so in a sense that conflicts operationally with behaviorism. The appendix will also show that the psychology of habits in St Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica is fundamentally consistent with the thinking of both Aristotle and Skinner. In addition, the appendix examines some especially challenging or significant passages in other writers from Aristotle to Shakespeare, and concludes with a list of pas­ sages that depend on the psychology of habits from a number of writers after Aristotle. As indicated in Chapter 1, Aristotle generally says that our habits cause us to act and our thinking controls our action in the sense of guiding it - a view entirely consistent with Skinner's regarding the relation between thought and action. We choose to aim at a virtuous end in a very limited sense: habituation causes us to love virtue, and hence we think of and want to do good (Nicomachean 1140b, 1143b-Sa; cf. Anscombe 62; Shute 75-8; Hardie 37). Beyond this, choice is concerned with the means to attain our end. Aristotle says that in order to be a true choice, a selection of means must be based on deliberation (1111b-13a). In choice (and hence in deliberation), virtue is a characteristic "guided by right reason," which in turn is "determined by practical wisdom" (1144b; see 1144a-Sa). But reason and wisdom as guides depend on the habituated virtue of sophrosyne (temperance or self-control). For Aristotle this habituated virtue is what "'preserves' our 'practical wisdom,"' and if we lose our virtuous habit our thinking will change accordingly (1140b). This is consistent with Skin­ ner's view that reason and wisdom as guides depend on conditioning. Practical wisdom "deals with what is just, noble, and good for man; and it is doing such things that characterize a man as good. But our ability to perform such actions is in no way enhanced by knowing them, since the virtues are characteristics"- are "acquired by habit," according to Martin Ostwald's explanation of "characteristics" here (1143b). The relation of wisdom to virtue is thus that "virtue makes us aim at the right target, and practical wisdom makes us use the right means" (1144a). Aristotle adds 179 180 Shakespeare's Imagined Persons that although he does not believe virtues are "rational principles," "forms of knowledge," as Socrates did, he thinks virtues are characteristics "united with a rational principle" (1144b). This statement is consistent with the behaviorist view that the way we think about what we do is an integral part of what we do and of our characteristic behavior. In their unity, right reason and virtue operate together: right reason, guided by practical wisdom, deliberates a choice of means for a good end which has been chosen because of a habit of virtue. The causal rela­ tion between practical wisdom and virtuous action is quite evidently that between rules and rule-governed behavior in Skinner's theory. We act virtuously because we have been conditioned to do so, and intentions, rules, and plans function as discriminative stimuli to guide our actions (see Chapter 2). In addition, the operations of reason in Aristotle's account of deliberation are of the same sort as Skinner's "covert operations" in mak­ ing decisions.1 But if this is the way Aristotle views the relation between thought and action, what does he mean when he states specifically that thought is a cause of action? We know that for Aristotle action is controlled by the purpose and the thinking which precedes and accompanies any undertak­ ing (e.g. Joachim 12-16). I have explained that in Skinner's theory, too, intentions, rules, and plans may be said to guide and control behavior even though these thoughts are dependent variables with respect to the person's conditioning. Is this all Aristotle means? For the most part in the Nicomachean Ethics the answer is evidently yes, as I have argued. But in one important passage in the Ethics Aristotle may appear to go beyond this view in taking the position that humans are set in motion by thought and that a thought can necessitate action. I want to show that at bottom this has its counterpart in Skinner's idea that a thought can function as a discriminative stimulus to evoke behavior in a way that may virtually "force" a response (Science and Human Behavior 107-13, esp. 112). Now of course there is a conceptual difference, and the issue is whether there is a significant operational difference. Aristotle argues in the Movement of Animals that the conclusion of a practical syllogism necessitates action (Anscombe 64-6), and the passage in question in the Nicomachean Ethics also uses this argument (1147a-b). First Aristotle states the general form of the practical syllogism. A universal that is a current belief is one premise and "the other involves particular facts which fall within the domain of sense perception." If a particular case falls under the universal rule, "the soul is thereupon bound to affirm the conclusion, and if the premises involve action, the soul is bound to perform this act at once." Thus if we believe as a universal that "Every­ thing sweet ought to be tasted" and we know a particular thing is sweet, theP if we are able to taste we are "bound to act accordingly at once." Appendix 181 Aristotle offers this argument as part of a defense of Socrates's view that if we truly know the right thing to do we will do it, and his concern is to elucidate the conduct of the morally weak person, who seems to know the right thing to do but does not do it. Aristotle continues by analyzing a specific example in which a morally weak person has the universal of practical wisdom that sweets should be avoided, and a contradictory universal, based in strong appetites, that all sweets give pleasure. There is also a factual perception that a particu­ lar thing is sweet, and, crucially, "suppose further that the appetite <for pleasure> happens to be present." The result is that although one univer­ sal tells the person to avoid the sweet thing, "appetite, capable as it is of setting in motion each part of our body, drives" the person to eat the sweet: "Thus it turns out that a morally weak man acts under the influ­ ence of some kind of reasoning and opinion, an opinion which is not intrinsically but only incidentally opposed to right reason; for it is not opinion but appetite that is opposed to right reason" (1147a-b). Aristotle adds that "The final premise, consisting as it does in an opinion about an object perceived by the senses, determines our action." The morally weak person "in the grip of emotion" does not have "active possession" of the universal that the sweet should be avoided, or if the person does think of this universal, it is "not in the sense of knowing it, but in the sense of uttering it as a drunken man may utter verses of Empedocles" (1147b). The comparison with drunkenness is literal, for at the start of this passage Aristotle says that "passions actually cause palpable changes in the body" and that "we must attribute to the morally weak a condition similar to that of men who are asleep, mad, or drunk" (1147a). H. H. Joachim, who holds that Aristotle here "insists that all action results from a fusion of feeling (passion) and thinking," explains what is meant in this specific example as follows. The knowledge overcome is not the universal principle that practical wisdom proposes but the "knowledge of a principle in a particular perceptible embodiment. ... And this knowledge is perverted, or fails ... under the stress of temptation, because the temptation itself enforces a vivid recognition of the percept in question as a case of a different major premiss." Hence the morally weak person cannot carry out his or her "good principle" because the percept is seen as a case of the major premise that sweets give pleasure, and experiencing it in this way "is enforced by" desire (228-9). It seems to me that the paradigm underlying Joachim's explanation is fundamentally congruent with Skinner's ideas about prepotency and about the way thought affects action as a discriminative stimulus. The appetites of the morally weak person are not habituated to self-control, and in the example an appetite is strong. The sweet is a stimulus, and in a state of intense desire the response of thinking that eating sweets gives pleasure 182 Shakespeare's Imagined Persons is strongly reinforced. This thought then acts as a discriminative stimulus for eating the sweet. The thought that indulging in such pleasures is bad will tend not to come to mind because it will not be reinforced when the body is in such a physiological state, and because the competing response of thinking that sweets are pleasurable is so strong. Or if the virtuous universal does come to mind, the response to it is minimal: the person utters the words but under the influence of intense desire would not find it reinforcing even to think about what meaning they have ("uttering it as a drunken man may utter verses of Empedocles"). It may be argued in rebuttal that because Skinner believes the action of eating the sweet may occur without any verbalized thought at all, his view is essentially different from Aristotle's.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Psychology and the Aims of Normative Ethics”
    Regina A. Rini (forthcoming). “Psychology and the Aims of Normative Ethics”. To appear in Springer Handbook of Neuroethics (ed. J. Clausen and N. Levy). Psychology and the Aims of Normative Ethics Regina A. Rini University of Oxford [email protected] Abstract: This chapter discusses the philosophical relevance of empirical research on moral cognition. It distinguishes three central aims of normative ethical theory: understanding the nature of moral agency, identifying morally right actions, and determining the justification of moral beliefs. For each of these aims, the chapter considers and rejects arguments against employing cognitive scientific research in normative inquiry. It concludes by suggesting that, whichever of the central aims one begins from, normative ethics is improved by engaging with the science of moral cognition. Key words: is/ought gap, moral agency, moral intuition, moral philosophy, ought-implies- can I. Three Central Questions of Normative Ethics It is undeniable that the field of empirical moral psychology has grown dramatically in the last decade, with new experimental techniques allowing us unprecedented understanding of the causal and computational structures of the human moral faculty. Or, at least, it is undeniable that this research contributes to a descriptive project, one of better understanding the facts about who we are and how we think.1 But what might be denied is that these investigations have much to offer to normative ethics, a distinctively prescriptive sort of inquiry.2 The purpose of this chapter is to show why normative ethics - the study of 1 Although this chapter discusses quite a range of psychological findings, it is not intended to be a comprehensive overview of the empirical literature.
    [Show full text]
  • Philosophy 316K Science and Philosophy: Moral Psychology MWF 1:00-2:00 GAR 3.116
    Philosophy 316K Science and Philosophy: Moral Psychology MWF 1:00-2:00 GAR 3.116 “In present-day philosophy an explanation is required how an unjust man is a bad man, or an unjust action a bad one; to give such an explanation belongs to ethics; but it cannot even be begun until we are equipped with a sound philosophy of psychology.” G. E. M. Anscombe “Scientists and humanists should consider together the possibility that the time has come for ethics to be removed temporarily from the hands of the philosophers and biologicized." E. O. Wilson “I do not believe that a moral philosophy can ever be founded on a scientific basis. The valuation of life and all its nobler expressions can only come out of the soul’s yearning toward its own destiny. Every attempt to reduce ethics to scientific formulas must fail. Of that I am perfectly convinced.” Albert Einstein Instructor: Michael Dale Email: [email protected] Office: WAG 421 Office Hours: XXXXXXXX & by appointment 1 Course Description: This particular version of Science and Philosophy will focus on the burgeoning field of moral psychology. The last few decades have seen unprecedented advances in the empirical sciences, particularly neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology. What happens when these empirical findings—many of which undermine or at least come into conflict with our ordinary intuitions about ourselves and the world—run up against the traditionally theoretical discipline of ethics? Can they weigh in on such debates or should they be understood as mere descriptions of the world? For example, can the empirical finding that peoples’ behavior is not so much predicted by their character traits but instead by the situations that they find themselves in undermine virtue ethics, which presupposes the existence of character traits? Or what about morality itself? Can the idea that natural selection shaped our moral beliefs call the objectivity of morality into question? In this class, we attempt to answer these questions.
    [Show full text]
  • Methods, Models, and the Evolution of Moral Psychology
    Methods, Models, and the Evolution of Moral Psychology Cailin O'Connor Abstract Why are we good? Why are we bad? Questions regarding the evolution of morality have spurred an astoundingly large interdisciplinary literature. Some significant subset of this body of work addresses questions regarding our moral psychology: how did humans evolve the psychological properties which underpin our systems of ethics and morality? Here I do three things. First, I discuss some methodological issues, and defend particularly effective methods for addressing many research questions in this area. Second, I give an in-depth example, describing how an explanation can be given for the evolution of guilt|one of the core moral emotions|using the methods advocated here. Last, I lay out which sorts of strategic scenarios generally are the ones that our moral psychology evolved to `solve', and thus which models are the most useful in further exploring this evolution. 1. Introduction Why are we good? Why are we bad? Questions regarding the evolution of morality have spurred an astoundingly large interdisciplinary literature with contributions from (at least) biology, sociology, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, and computer science. Some sig- nificant subset of this body of work addresses questions regarding our moral psychology: how did humans evolve the psychological properties which underpin our systems of ethics and morality? Debates in this literature are ongoing, and often heated. One reason for this is that there are a number of methodological problems researchers must tackle in addressing the evolution of moral psychology. Human psychology evolved in the deep past, over the course of millions of years, and as a result of countless interactions between individuals.
    [Show full text]
  • Moral Psychology Fall 2016
    PSYC GU4672: Moral Psychology Fall 2016 PSYC GU4672: Moral Psychology (seminar, 4 points). Fall 2016. Tuesdays, 10:10 AM – 12:00 PM. 405 Schermerhorn Instructor: Larisa Heiphetz ([email protected]) Office hours: By appointment The best way to reach me is via e-mail, and I typically reply to e-mails within 48 hours. I am happy to meet with you throughout the semester to discuss anything related to the course; please e-mail me to set up an appointment. I. Bulletin description II. A full description of the content of the course III. The rationale for giving the course IV. The reading list and weekly syllabus V. Course requirements I. Bulletin description Prerequisites: Two courses in psychology, including at least one course with a focus on social and/or developmental psychology, and permission of the instructor. Review of theories and current research on moral cognition and behavior. Topics include definitions of morality, the development of moral cognition, the role that other aspects of human experience (e.g., emotion, intentions) play in moral judgments, and the relationship between moral psychology and other areas of study (e.g., religious cognition, prejudice and stereotyping, the criminal justice system). II. A full description of the content of the course. How do children learn to distinguish right from wrong? Why do some people act more morally than others, and how is it that the same person can make moral decisions in some circumstances but not others? What does it mean to be “moral”? Questions like these have fascinated scholars and laypeople for centuries. In this seminar, we will discuss a) theories of moral cognition and b) empirical findings on morality in children and adults.
    [Show full text]
  • Psychedelic Unselfing and Moral Perception
    Psychedelic Unselfing and Moral Perception A Philosophical Account of the Change of Values Induced by Psychedelic Experiences Juuso Viljami Kähönen University of Helsinki Faculty of Social Sciences Philosophy Master’s Thesis April 2020 Abstract Scientific and scholarly attention to psychedelics has recently faced a resurgence. Recent studies suggest that psychedelic experiences can change values and behavioral dispositions, for example increase appreciation of nature and increase prosocial behavior. For this reason psychedelics have been identified as a promising option for moral neuroenhancement. However, we still struggle to understand these changes in the valuations psychedelics induce, or why exactly they are morally enhancing. In this thesis I construct a philosophical framework to understand these changes. I combine Iris Murdoch and Abraham Maslow’s thinking with empirical studies on psychedelics and experiences of self-transcendence. Psychedelics induce experiences of self-transcendence which involve evaluative changes. I argue that these changes are not random but result from an intelligible process. I first claim that psychedelics in some cases induce unselfing, that is, perspectival and evaluative changes resulting from reduction of salience attributed to oneself. By reducing egoic centering, unselfing opens our attention to the world and can cause perspectival widening from egocentric into more allocentric (other- directed) or cosmocentric (universal) perspective. The second main claim is that the process of unselfing is often connected to sharpened perception of values. The increased attention to the world and reduced egocentric attributions of salience, resulting from unselfing, can widen our evaluative context and make it possible to perceive or grasp intrinsic values better, thus ‘tuning the moral compass’ away from instrumental egocentric mode of evaluation.
    [Show full text]
  • What Makes an Emotion Moral?
    What Makes an Emotion Moral? by Mara L. Bollard A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Philosophy) in the University of Michigan 2018 Doctoral Committee: Professor Daniel Jacobson, Chair Professor Sarah Buss Professor Peter A. Railton Associate Professor Chandra Sripada Mara L. Bollard [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2416-948X © Mara L. Bollard 2018 Acknowledgements I could not have completed this dissertation without the support of many people, and I regret that I cannot properly express my gratitude to everyone who helped shape this project, and my time in graduate school, in these few short pages. First of all, tremendous thanks are due to my committee members: Daniel Jacobson, Sarah Buss, Peter Railton, and Chandra Sripada, all of whom played no small role in my decision to come to Michigan in the first place, and have continued to intellectually enthrall, challenge, and encourage me ever since. I am especially grateful to my advisor, Dan Jacobson, whose guidance, humor, and unflagging support got me, and this project, across the finish line. Special thanks, too, to Chandra Sripada, who has been a cheerful and constant advocate of my work, my teaching, and the Mind and Moral Psychology Working Group. The research and writing of this dissertation was supported by a Mellon Recruitment Award, a Rackham One-Term Dissertation Fellowship, a Sweetland Dissertation Writing Institute Fellowship, and numerous Rackham Conference Travel Grants. I am grateful for incisive and helpful feedback on these chapters from members of the University of Michigan Mind and Moral Psychology Working Group, the University of Michigan Graduate Student Working Group, the 2016 University of Michigan Candidacy Seminar, and the 2017 Sweetland Dissertation Writing Institute.
    [Show full text]
  • The Fragmentation of Moral Psychology: Reason, Emotion, Motivation and Moral Judgment in Ethics and Science Christopher Zarpentine
    Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2011 The Fragmentation of Moral Psychology: Reason, Emotion, Motivation and Moral Judgment in Ethics and Science Christopher Zarpentine Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES THE FRAGMENTATION OF MORAL PSYCHOLOGY: REASON, EMOTION, MOTIVATION AND MORAL JUDGMENT IN ETHICS AND SCIENCE BY CHRISTOPHER ZARPENTINE A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Spring 2011 The members of the committee approve the dissertation of Christopher Zarpentine defended on March 29, 2011. ______________________________ Alfred R. Mele Professor Directing Dissertation ______________________________ John Kelsay University Representative ______________________________ David McNaughton Committee Member ______________________________ Michael Ruse Committee Member Approved: ______________________________ J. Piers Rawling, Chair, Department of Philosophy The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members. ii Writing this dissertation made me realize how much I have learned from my parents. I dedicate this work to them. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It would be true to say that this project started my very first semester of graduate school. Back in 2004, Eddy Nahmias and Zach Ernst taught the fMRI papers by Josh Greene and colleagues. I’m grateful to them for setting me on this path. But a project like this doesn’t get completed without a lot of help along the way. I should first thank my committee members: John Kelsay and David McNaughton—both of whom were pinch-hitters, stepping in to replace Frank Marlowe and Josh Gert, whose own career paths led a different way—and my advisor and committee chair, Al Mele, who has been absolutely irreplaceable.
    [Show full text]
  • Moral Grammar Erica Roeder and Gilbert Harman
    Moral Grammar Erica Roeder and Gilbert Harman The approach to generative grammar originating with Chomsky (1957) has been enormously successful within linguistics. Seeing such success, one wonders whether a similar approach might help us understand other human domains besides language. One such domain is morality. Could there be universal generative moral grammar? More specifically, might it be useful to moral theory to develop an explicit generative account of parts of particular moralities in the way it has proved useful to linguistics to produce generative grammars for parts of particular languages? Should moral theorists attempt to develop a theory of moral universals that is analogous to the theory of universal grammar in linguistics? Can moral theorists develop a “principles and parameters” account of possible moralities inspired by the principles and parameters approach to language in current linguistics? Could there be a “minimalist” program for moral theory inspired by the minimalist program in linguistics? There will be two main parts to our discussion of these questions. The first will focus on the analogy between generative grammar and moral theory. The second will focus on analogies between universal grammar and theories of moral universals. In the first part, we give some background and indicate how we are going to understand morality and moral theory. We describe certain aspects of generative grammar and how claims about generative grammars are tested, allowing for a distinction between “competence” and “performance”. We then try to say what a corresponding “generative moral grammar” would be and how it would be tested. We next discuss a number of objections to the analogy between moral theory and generative grammar and indicate possible responses.
    [Show full text]
  • Evolutionary Psychology in the Service of Moral Psychology: a Possible Future for Ethics William S
    Skidmore College Creative Matter Philosophy Faculty Scholarship Philosophy Department 2011 Evolutionary Psychology in the Service of Moral Psychology: A Possible Future for Ethics William S. Lewis Skidmore College Follow this and additional works at: https://creativematter.skidmore.edu/phil_rel_fac_schol Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Lewis, W. S. (2011). Evolutionary Psychology in the Service of Moral Philosophy: A Possible Future for Ethics?. Journal Of Speculative Philosophy, 25(1), 48-63. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Philosophy Department at Creative Matter. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Creative Matter. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Evolutionary Psychology in the Service of Moral Philosophy, A Possible Future for Ethics? William S. Lewis Skidmore College Draft of “Evolutionary Psychology in the Service of Moral Psychology: A Possible Future for Ethics.” Journal of Speculative Philosophy Vol. 25, No. 1 (2011): 48-63. “Someone may ask, “What is the difference, then, between moral philosophy and moral psychology?” The answer may be that there is no interesting difference and that the issue is of interest only to university administrators.”1 In “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life (1891),” William James provides a rough taxonomy of the state of ethical philosophy at the time that he is writing. Making a division between psychological approaches that identify the good with the feeling of pleasure derived by a naturally evolved organism and metaphysical approaches which hold that the good is conceptual, James argues that both are equally goods and that they each imply similar obligation.
    [Show full text]
  • The Evolution of Psychological Altruism OD.Pdf
    The Evolution of Psychological Altruism Gualtiero Piccinini, 1 University Blvd, Department of Philosophy, University of Missouri – St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 6121, [email protected], http://www.umsl.edu/~piccininig/ Armin Schulz, 3101 Wescoe Hall, Department of Philosophy, University of Kansas, [email protected], http://people.ku.edu/~a382s825/ Abstract. We argue that there are two importantly different kinds of altruistic motivations: classical psychological altruism, which generates ultimate desires to help other organisms at least partly for those organisms’ sake, and nonclassical psychological altruism, which generates ultimate desires to help other organisms for the sake of the organism providing the help. We then argue that classical psychological altruism is adaptive if the desire to help others is intergenerationally reliable, and thus need not be learned. Nonclassical psychological altruism is adaptive when the desire to help others is adaptively learnable. Thus, both kinds of psychological altruism are likely to be selected for. This theory of the motivational structures underlying helping behaviors opens up new avenues for the productive, interdisciplinary study of psychological altruism. Some organisms behave altruistically—they reduce their own reproductive (direct) fitness (i.e., the expected number of their offspring) while increasing the reproductive (direct) fitness of another organism (West et al., 2007, Okasha, 2013). Such altruistic behavior can be selected for (Sober & Wilson, 1998; Gardner & West, 2010; Okasha, 2006): its inclusive fitness can be positive (Okasha, 2011; Grafen, 2006). (An organism’s inclusive fitness is defined as the sum of an organism’s direct fitness—i.e., the expected number of its own offspring—and its relatedness-weighted contribution to the direct fitness of every other organism in the population; see West et al., 2007, 2011, Okasha, 2011.) What is controversial is whether behavior is ever motivated altruistically—i.e., by a motive to benefit others rather than by selfish interests or automatic control mechanisms.
    [Show full text]
  • Hetherington, Ross (2012) the Roles of Moral Psychology in the Philosophy of John Rawls
    Hetherington, Ross (2012) The roles of moral psychology in the philosophy of John Rawls. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3567/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] The Roles of Moral Psychology in the Philosophy of John Rawls Ross Hetherington BSc MLitt Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Ph.D. Philosophy School of Humanities University of Glasgow April 2012 © Ross Hetherington 2012 Abstract This thesis explicates and critically considers the various roles played by moral psychology within the work of John Rawls throughout his career. In the second half of the 20 th Century, Rawls’s development of a sophisticated theory of justice in the social contract tradition played a significant part in reviving the study of normative political philosophy in the western world. Rawls argued that any theory of justice must be closely integrated with our best contemporary understanding of human psychology. Moral psychology is hence widely recognised to play an important role in Rawls’s overall theory.
    [Show full text]
  • Elements of Moral Cognition: Rawls’ Linguistic Analogy and the Cognitive Science of Moral and Legal Judgment John Mikhail Frontmatter More Information
    Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-85578-5 - Elements of Moral Cognition: Rawls’ Linguistic Analogy and the Cognitive Science of Moral and Legal Judgment John Mikhail Frontmatter More information Elements of Moral Cognition Rawls’ Linguistic Analogy and the Cognitive Science of Moral and Legal Judgment Is the science of moral cognition usefully modeled on aspects of Universal Grammar? Are human beings born with an innate “moral grammar” that causes them to analyze human action in terms of its moral structure, with just as little awareness as they analyze human speech in terms of its grammatical structure? Questions like these have been at the forefront of moral psychology ever since John Mikhail revived them in his infl uential work on the linguistic anal- ogy and its implications for jurisprudence and moral theory. In this seminal book, Mikhail offers a careful and sustained analysis of the moral grammar hypothesis, showing how some of John Rawls’ origi- nal ideas about the linguistic analogy, together with famous thought experiments like the trolley problem, can be used to improve our understanding of moral and legal judgment. The book will be of interest to philosophers, cognitive scientists, legal scholars, and other researchers in the interdisciplinary fi eld of moral psychology. John Mikhail is Professor of Law and Philosophy at Georgetown University. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-85578-5 - Elements of Moral Cognition: Rawls’ Linguistic Analogy and the Cognitive
    [Show full text]