Emotions, Experiments and the Moral Brain. The Failure of Moral Cognition Arguments Against Moral Sentimentalism

Autor: Lasse T. Bergmann
Jazyk: German<br />English<br />Italian
Rok vydání: 2019
Předmět:
Zdroj: Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia, Vol 10, Iss 1, Pp 16-32 (2019)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2039-4667
2239-2629
DOI: 10.4453/rifp.2019.0002
Popis: Moral cognition research has in part been taken to be a problem for moral sentimentalists, who claim that emotions are sensitive to moral information. In particular, Joshua Greene can be understood to provide an argument against moral sentimentalism on the basis of neuropsychological evidence. In his argument he claims that emotions are an unreliable source of moral insight. However, the argument boils down to circular claims: (1) Rationalistic factors are assumed to be the only morally relevant factors; (2) Emotions are not sensitive to these factors; (3) Thus, Moral Sentimentalism is false, because only rationalistic factors are justified. While this circularity makes so-called sourcing-arguments fallacious if applied against moral sentimentalism, moral cognition research has much to contribute. Indeed, moral cognition research will be instrumental for clarifying the sentimentalist position, shedding light on the mental mechanics underlying emotional moral processing. After all, evidence from moral cognition points to substantial involvement of affective processes in human moral cognizing and their embodied nature; thus, challenging long held beliefs about morality.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals