Challenges to Audi's Ethical Intuitionism

Robert Audi's ethical intuitionism (Audi, 1997, 1998) deals effectively with standard epistemological problems facing the intuitionist. This is primarily because the notion of self-evidence employed by Audi commits to very little. Importantly, according to Audi we might understand a self-evident moral proposition and yet not believe it, and we might accept a self-evident proposition because it is self-evident, and yet fail to see that it is self-evident. I argue that these and similar features give rise to certain challenges to Audi's intuitionism. It becomes harder to argue that there are any self-evident propositions at all, or more than just a few such propositions. It is questionable whether all moral propositions that we take an interest in are evidentially connected to self-evident propositions. It is difficult to understand what could guide the sort conceptual revision that is likely to take place in our moral theorising. It is hard to account for the epistemic value of the sort of systematicity usually praised in moral theorising. Finally, it is difficult to see what difference the truth of Audi's ethical intuitionism would make to the way in which we (fail to) handle moral disagreement.     

Ross and the particularism/generalism divide

W. D. Ross is commonly considered to be a generalist about prima facie duty but a particularist about absolute duty. That is, many philosophers hold that Ross accepts that there are true moral principles involving prima facie duty but denies that there are any true moral principles involving absolute duty. I agree with the former claim: Ross surely accepts prima facie moral principles. However, in this paper, I challenge the latter claim. Ross, I argue, is no more a particularist about absolute duty than a utilitarian or a Kantian is. While this conclusion is interesting in its own right, it is also important, I argue, because it prevents us from overlooking Ross's criterion of moral obligation and because it may have implications on the broader debate between particularists and generalists.     

On the Fulfillment of Moral Obligation

This paper considers three general views about the nature of moral obligation and three particular answers (with which these views are typically associated) concerning the following question: if on Monday you lend me a book that I promise to return to you by Friday, what precisely is my obligation to you and what constitutes its fulfillment? The example is borrowed from W.D. Ross, who in The Right and the Good proposed what he called the Objective View of obligation, from which he inferred what is here called the First Answer to the question. In Foundations of Ethics Ross repudiated the Objective View in favor of the Subjective View, from which he inferred a Second Answer. In this paper each of the Objective and Subjective Views and the First and Second Answers are rejected in favor of the Prospective View and a Third Answer. The implications of the Prospective View for another question closely related to the original question are then investigated: what precisely is your right regarding my returning the book and what constitutes its satisfaction?     

道德理论的新进展--道德判断的社会直觉模式

道德判断的研究一直遵循皮亚杰和柯尔伯格的理性主义模式．但随着人们对认知双重过程论的逐渐认可,传统的道德判断理论受到了挑战。本文介绍了道德判断的一种新的理论模式——道德判断的社会直觉模式。该理论认为,道德判断是由迅速、自动的评价(直觉)所导致。     

恐惧管理对道德五基准及道德判断的影响

本研究探讨恐惧管理理论对道德五种基本准则以及道德判断的影响。85名被试随机分配到实验组与控制组。全部被试首先完成道德五基准问卷。实验组被试接受死亡凸显提示后观看短片并完成一系列道德两难问题的判断;控制组接受一般负性事件提示。研究结果显示,相对于控制组而言,实验组被试倾向于作出直觉而非理性判断,并且死亡凸显对道德直觉判断的影响受到厌恶情绪的中介作用。同时,当故事情节发生转换时,实验组被试倾向于作出与原有道德直觉规范相一致的道德判断。本研究从恐惧管理理论出发,为道德判断的情理之争提供了启示。     

Ethical intuitionism and the linguistic analogy

It is a central tenet of ethical intuitionism as defended by W. D. Ross and others that moral theory should re?ect the convictions of mature moral agents. Hence, intuitionism is plausible to the extent that it corresponds to our well-considered moral judgments. After arguing for this claim, I discuss whether intuitionists o?er an empirically adequate account of our moral obligations. I do this by applying recent empirical research by John Mikhail that is based on the idea of a universal moral grammar to a number of claims implicit in W. D. Ross’s normative theory. I argue that the results at least partly vindicate intuitionism.     

Roderick Chisholm and The Shaping of American Epistemology

Abstract: Roderick Chisholm had a profound effect on the shape of American epistemology. In this article, I not only give an account of the large‐scale structure of Chisholm's views but also say something about the place of Chisholmian themes in contemporary work. I thus present an understanding and an appreciation of Chisholm's contribution to epistemology by exhibiting a number of alternative developments of Chisholmian ideas that are currently under discussion.     

Ross’s place in the history of analytic philosophy

With the recent revival of moral intuitionism, the work of W. D. Ross has grown in stature. But if we look at some recent well-regarded histories, anthologies and companions of analytic philosophy, Ross is noticeably absent. This discrepancy of assessments raises the question of Ross’s place in the history of analytic philosophy. Hans-Johann Glock has recently claimed that Ross is not an analytic philosopher at all, but is instead a ‘traditional philosopher’. In this article, I will identify several undeniable features of analytic philosophy that Ross’s work bears: a focus on linguistic analysis, great respect for pre-theoretical thoughts, the conviction that philosophy is a collaborative, piecemeal enterprise and so on. Such an investigation, I claim, reveals two historically significant results: Ross was the first ethicist to fully draw from commonsense beliefs about morality in light of characteristic analytic considerations to secure his theory. Two, concerning the matter of whether the notions ‘right’ and ‘good’ are reducible to other notions, Ross appears to have been right: ‘right’ and ‘good’ are irreducible notions. The classical analytic metaethicists, who based their entire research programme on the promise of finding suitable reductive semantic analyses of ‘right’ and ‘good’, were wrong. These results, I believe, suffice to secure W. D. Ross a high place in the history of analytic philosophy.     

道德判断中的情绪因素——从认知神经科学的角度进行探讨

道德判断中的情绪与认知因素是社会认知神经科学研究的重要议题。本文对近年来社会认知神经科学领域中有关情绪影响道德判断的研究发现和相关理论进行了回顾和总结。介绍了外源性情绪影响道德判断的行为研究证据,大脑情绪功能障碍者在道德判断中的异常表现以及道德两难任务所对应的大脑激活模式,着重探讨了情绪因素影响道德判断的神经机制和道德判断中情绪加工与认知加工相互作用的过程。揭示了情绪是道德判断的必要因素,道德判断是情绪加工和认知加工协同作用的结果,并在此基础上提出了该领域未来发展的设想。     

Situating Moral Justification: Rethinking the Mission of Moral Epistemology

This is the first of two companion articles drawn from a larger project, provisionally entitled Undisciplining Moral Epistemology. The overall goal is to understand how moral claims may be rationally justified in a world characterized by cultural diversity and social inequality. To show why a new approach to moral justification is needed, it is argued that several currently influential philosophical accounts of moral justification lend themselves to rationalizing the moral claims of those with more social power. The present article explains how discourse ethics is flawed just in this way. The article begins by identifying several conditions of adequacy for assessing reasoning practices designed to achieve moral justification and shows that, when used in contexts of cultural diversity and social inequality, discourse ethics fails these conditions. It goes on to argue that the failure of discourse ethics is rooted in its reliance on a broader conception of moral epistemology that is invidiously idealized. It concludes by pointing to the need to rethink both the mission and the method of moral epistemology.     

Naturalizing Moral Justification: Rethinking the Method of Moral Epistemology

The companion piece to this article, “Situating Moral Justification,” challenges the idea that moral epistemology's mission is to establish a single, all‐purpose reasoning strategy for moral justification because no reasoning practice can be expected to deliver authoritative moral conclusions in all social contexts. The present article argues that rethinking the mission of moral epistemology requires rethinking its method as well. Philosophers cannot learn which reasoning practices are suitable to use in particular contexts exclusively by exploring logical relations among concepts. Instead, in order to understand which reasoning practices are capable of justifying moral claims in different types of contexts, we need to study empirically the relationships between reasoning practices and the contexts in which they are used. The article proposes that philosophers investigate case studies of real‐world moral disputes in which people lack shared cultural assumptions and/or are unequal in social power. It motivates and explains the proposed case study method and illustrates the philosophical value of this method through a case study.     

道德直觉背景下的道德决策：影响因素探究

以往对道德直觉的研究表明了情绪因素在道德决策中的重要作用, 研究者提出道德决策中存在有意识认知和无意识情绪两种加工过程, 二者之间不能够完全分离与孤立。针对这种认知—情绪过程解释、经典电车和人行桥困境中的道德判断差异等问题, 近年来大量研究通过对道德行为者和道德判断者自身原因、道德情境等主客观因素的深入考察, 试图从不同角度来揭示认知—情绪过程解释的合理性及道德决策差异背后的其他原因, 形成了道德直觉背景下相关领域诸多新的关注点。未来研究有必要针对道德决策研究的方法学、情境的扩展及认知—情感系统内部交互等问题作进一步探讨。     

Particularism and the Point of Moral Principles

According to radical moral particularists such as Jonathan Dancy, there are no substantive moral principles. And yet, few particularists wish to deny that something very like moral principles do indeed play a significant role in our everyday moral practice. Loathe at dismissing this as mere error on the part of everyday moral agents, particularists have proposed a number of alternative accounts of the practice. The aim of all of these accounts is to make sense of our appeal to general moral truths in both reaching and justifying our particular moral judgments without thereby violating the particularists' stricture against substantive moral principles. In this paper, I argue that the most prominent non-substantive accounts of moral generalities appealed to by radical particularists – the heuristic account and default reasons accounts – fail in this aim.     

Kant, Nonaccidentalness and the Availability of Moral Worth

Contemporary Kantians who defend Kant's view of the superiority of the sense of duty as a form of motivation appeal to various ideas. Some say, if only implicitly, that the sense of duty is always ``available' to an agent, when she has a moral obligation. Some, like Barbara Herman, say that the sense of duty provides a ``nonaccidental' connection between an agent's motivation and the act's rightness. In this paper I show that the ``availability' and ``nonaccidentalness' arguments are in tension with one another. And the ``availability' idea, although certainly supported by some passages in Kant himself, is also clearly denied in other passages. My conclusion is that Kantians will need to abandon either availability or nonaccidentalness if they wish to have a consistent set of views about the sense of duty.     

弱势群体判断对不同价值语义启动下道德判断的调节效应研究

通过行为实验探讨了公平正义和人文关怀这两种基本道德价值的语义启动对涉及弱势群体的道德两难问题判断的影响。研究结果表明,不同道德价值语义启动对道德判断有显著影响,具体表现为：在公平正义启动状态下,人们的道德判断不会对弱势者有明显的道德宽容偏向。当个体处于恻隐关怀启动状态时则会出现明显的道德判断弱势者效应,即对弱势群体的道德判断存在显著的宽容偏向。进一步的检验表明弱势群体判断在道德价值语义启动与道德判断中起着显著的调节作用。本研究不仅从实证的角度证实了道德价值语境在道德判断中的重要性。同时文章还指出在面对重大社会负性事件时,政府、社会媒体、学术界应该呈现怎样的道德价值语境是一个既具有突出现实性和重要理论性的问题。     

Morphological Rationalism and the Psychology of Moral Judgment

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.

道德敏感性的研究现状与展望

道德敏感性是对情境的道德含意的领悟和解释能力,是道德行为产生过程中逻辑上的初始心理成分。道德敏感性与个体对情境的自动化加工及其伴随着的直觉情绪有着密切的关系。情境的背景与特征,个体的角色卷入、道德图式以及人格特点等因素都可能影响个体的道德敏感性。道德敏感性研究已在儿童早期发展、职业伦理以及测验方法等领域取得一定成果,但其理论构建仍需进一步完善、深化,与教育干预密切相关的发展研究有待加强,研究方法也需拓展和改进     

厌恶与道德判断的关系

来自问卷调查和认知神经科学的证据表明,厌恶与道德判断可能存在密切关系,但是研究者对两者之间的关系是一般性的还是特异性的尚无定论。有若干证据表明厌恶影响一般的道德判断,也有研究认为厌恶主要影响人们对纯洁领域的道德判断。未来研究需要明确界定厌恶的类别,区分厌恶与道德厌恶两种不同的构念,从疾病防御的角度理解厌恶的进化根源,以及测量厌恶启动之后人们对不同道德冒犯的内隐态度。