Cognitive Psychology of Moral Intuitions
Jean-Pierre Changeux, Antonio R. Damasio, Wolf Singer & Yves Christen, eds., Neurobiology of Human Values: Research and Perspectives in Neurosciences 91 (2005)
14 Pages Posted: 4 Dec 2014
Date Written: 2005
Abstract
Moral intuitions operate in much the same way as other intuitions do; what makes the moral domain so distinctive is its foundations in the emotions, beliefs, and response tendencies that define indignation. The intuitive system of cognition, System I, is typically responsible for indignation; the more reflective system, System II, may or may not provide an override. Moral dumbfounding and moral numbness are often a product of moral intuitions that people are unable to justify. An understanding of indignation helps to explain the operation of many phenomena of interest to law and politics: the outrage heuristic, the centrality of harm, the role of reference states, moral framing, and the act-omission distinction. Because of the operation of indignation, it is extremely difficult for people to achieve coherence in their moral intuitions. Legal and political institutions usually aspire to be deliberative, and to pay close attention to System II; but even in deliberative institutions, System I can make some compelling demands.
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