Moral Judgments as Educated Intuitions

by Hanno Sauer

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262546706
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	11/01/2022
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Hanno Sauer is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Utrecht University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

1 The Fork 1

2 What's Reason Got to Do with It? 2

3 Two Challenges 3

4 Feeling and Thinking: A (Very) Brief History of Recent Moral Psychology 6

5 Educated Intuitions: An Overview 11

6 What Is This Thing Called Morality? 16

I The Anti-Rationalist Challenge 21

1 The Effectiveness of Moral Reasoning 25

Introduction 25

1 The Effectiveness Thesis 26

2 The Conscious-Reasoning Paradigm 28

3 Running Out of Reasons 29

4 The No Reasons Interpretation 32

5 Moral Reasoning as Confabulation 34

6 Moral Reasoning from an Intuitionist Perspective 36

7 Placebic Reasons 39

8 Moral Principles: Universal Moral Grammar or Confabulation? 41

9 Moral Choice Blindness 43

10 The Social Structure of Moral Reasoning 45

11 The Causality Requirement 47

Conclusion 48

2 Educated Intuitions 51

Introduction 51

1 The Automaticity Challenge 53

2 Habits and Practical Reason 57

3 Intellectualism and the Reasons Theory 61

4 Reason, Habits, and Second Nature 63

5 From Post Hoc Reasoning to Confabulation 65

6 Rational Habits: The Goal-Dependency of Education 66

7 Varieties of Post Hoc Reasoning 67

8 Moral Education: Experience and Teaching 70

9 Ex Ante Education 74

10 Ex Post Education 76

11 Reason and Its Limits 82

Conclusion 83

3 Moral Reasoning as a Social Practice 85

Introduction 85

1 Moral Intuitions and the Structure of Moral Justification 87

2 Structural Contextualism 90

3 Moral Justification and Moral Education 94

4 Confabulation or Inarticulateness? 95

5 From Challenges to Responses 100

6 From Responses to Challenges 102

7 The Flexibility of the Space of Reasons 105

8 Giving and Asking for Reasons 107

9 Moral Justification from an Empirical Perspective 115

Conclusion 126

II The Emotionist Challenge 129

4 Moral Error 139

Introduction 139

1 What Is Emotionism? 141

2 The Infallibility Problem 145

3 Recalcitrant and Flimsy Feelings 147

4 The Wrong Kind of Mistake 150

5 Substantive Moral Mistakes 160

Conclusion 163

5 Are Emotions Necessary for Moral Judgment? 165

Introduction 165

1 The Necessity Thesis: Psychopathy and the Moral/Conventional Distinction 168

2 Perceptual Characteristics of Emotions 173

3 Morality and Emotion: The Limits of Empathy 181

4 Is Reason Necessary for Moral Judgment? 185

Conclusion 191

6 Are Emotions Sufficient for Moral Judgment? 193

Introduction 193

1 The Sufficiency Thesis: Morality and Disgust 194

2 Justificatory Sufficiency 197

3 Moral Judgment and Reasons Responsiveness 200

4 Conceptual Constraints 210

5 What Reflection Can (and Cannot) Do 212

6 A (Limited) Role for Disgust? 217

Conclusion 219

III Applying the Model 223

7 Educated Deontological Intuitions 227

Introduction 227

1 Moral Dilemmas and Moral Intuitions 227

2 "From Neural 'Is' to Moral 'Ought'" 230

3 Functional Neuroimaging and the Problem of Reverse Inference 231

4 Response Time and Cognitive Load 234

5 Brain Lesions and the Dual Process Model 237

6 Up Close and Personal? From the Personal/Impersonal Distinction to the Concept of "Personal Force" 239

7 Intuitive and Counterintuitive Moral Judgment 245

8 Educated Deontological Intuitions 247

Conclusion 255

Conclusion 257

Notes 265

References 275

Name Index 305

Subject Index 309

What People are Saying About This

Neil Levy

Are moral beliefs impervious to reason? Are moral judgments constituted by emotions? Many philosophers and psychologists think we are forced to answer these questions affirmatively by empirical evidence. Hanno Sauer shows that while particular moral judgments are typically made on the basis of automatic intuitions, the intuitions themselves are educable, and reasoning—especially with others—plays an important role in this. The attractive rationalism he defends acknowledges the pervasive role of emotions in moral judgments, while nevertheless opening the way for genuine moral error and moral progress. Without doubt, this book is a major contribution to empirically informed metaethics and moral psychology.

Endorsement

Are moral beliefs impervious to reason? Are moral judgments constituted by emotions? Many philosophers and psychologists think we are forced to answer these questions affirmatively by empirical evidence. Hanno Sauer shows that while particular moral judgments are typically made on the basis of automatic intuitions, the intuitions themselves are educable, and reasoning—especially with others—plays an important role in this. The attractive rationalism he defends acknowledges the pervasive role of emotions in moral judgments, while nevertheless opening the way for genuine moral error and moral progress. Without doubt, this book is a major contribution to empirically informed metaethics and moral psychology.

—Neil Levy, Macquarie University; Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford

From the Publisher

Sauer sinks a sharp plow into some of the most fertile ground in our field: understanding moral judgment not as a competition between reason and intuition, but rather as a synthesis of them. The fruits are ours to read.

—Fiery Cushman, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Harvard University

Are moral beliefs impervious to reason? Are moral judgments constituted by emotions? Many philosophers and psychologists think we are forced to answer these questions affirmatively by empirical evidence. Hanno Sauer shows that while particular moral judgments are typically made on the basis of automatic intuitions, the intuitions themselves are educable, and reasoning—especially with others—plays an important role in this. The attractive rationalism he defends acknowledges the pervasive role of emotions in moral judgments, while nevertheless opening the way for genuine moral error and moral progress. Without doubt, this book is a major contribution to empirically informed metaethics and moral psychology.

—Neil Levy, Macquarie University; Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford

Fiery Cushman

Sauer sinks a sharp plow into some of the most fertile ground in our field: understanding moral judgment not as a competition between reason and intuition, but rather as a synthesis of them. The fruits are ours to read.