Art and Moral Understanding

Dangerous Art ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 70-92
Author(s):  
James Harold
Keyword(s):  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Understanding ◽  
Moral Learning ◽  
Cognitive Benefits ◽  
Moral Claims ◽  
Moral Themes

This chapter takes up the question of whether we might gain moral knowledge from art. The first section takes up arguments in favor of the cognitive benefits of art. It concludes that the case for art’s cognitive benefits is at best unproven. The second section takes up the question of whether trying to gain moral understanding is the best way to engage with art. It argues that it is more fruitful to think of artworks as offering us moral themes to consider than as offering us moral claims to believe. The chapter then turns to a variety of non-propositional approaches, as well as the possibility that art corrupts or degrades our moral understanding, and it argues that the case for this depressing conclusion is at least as strong as the case for thinking that art enriches moral understanding. The upshot is that the case for moral learning from art is weak.

Observation and Experience

2019 ◽  
pp. 106-150
Author(s):  
Sarah McGrath
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Moral Community ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Testimony ◽  
The World ◽  
Moral Claims

This chapter explores how experience and observation contribute to moral knowledge. It defends the view that experience and observation can contribute to moral knowledge in any of the ways in which they contribute to our ordinary, non-moral knowledge of the world around us, including by empirically confirming and disconfirming moral claims. I argue that moral testimony has important implications for the possibility of confirming moral views by non-moral observations. I also argue that membership in a moral community, which puts one in a position to compare the moral opinions of others with one’s own, can contribute to moral knowledge not only by affording evidence for or against one’s opinions, but also by providing feedback that can serve to calibrate one’s capacity for judgment so that future exercises of that judgment are more likely to deliver knowledge. The chapter concludes with a discussion of a priori moral knowledge.

scholarly journals A New Evolutionary Debunking Argument Against Moral Realism

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
JUSTIN MORTON
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking Arguments ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Standard Version ◽  
Debunking Arguments ◽  
Moral Claims ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking ◽  
Categorical Reasons

ABSTRACT:Evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs) claim that evolution has influenced our moral faculties in such a way that, if moral realism is true, then we have no positive moral knowledge. I present several popular objections to the standard version of this argument before offering a new EDA that has clear advantages in responding to these objections. Whereas the Standard EDA argues that evolution has selected for many moral beliefs with certain contents, this New EDA claims that evolution has selected for one belief: belief in the claim that categorical reasons exist. If moral realism is true, then this claim is entailed by all positive moral claims, and belief in it is defeated due to evolutionary influence. This entails that if realism is true, then we have no positive moral knowledge. While there may be objections against this New EDA, it is much stronger than the Standard EDA, and one realists ought to worry about.

Designing Games for Moral Learning and Knowledge Building

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 306-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Schrier
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Thinking ◽  
Learning Games ◽  
Moral Learning ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Moral Problems ◽  
Moral Choices

How can we better learn about and teach moral thinking and skills? How can we solve moral problems? One possible way is to create and use moral learning games, or games that enable players to work on moral scenarios, make moral choices, and gain relevant skills. One possible subcategory of these games is moral knowledge games, or games that aim to solve real-world moral problems and create new knowledge about morality. This article systematically analyzes relevant literature and related games and media to uncover a preliminary set of design principles for creating moral learning games and moral knowledge games. Frameworks such as the Elemental Tetrad, Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics (MDA), and Ethics Practice and Implementation Categorization Framework (EPIC) were used to analyze individual games and media. Ten different categories of principles emerged, along with 95 possible subprinciples. Implications, next steps, and limitations of this analysis were also discussed.

scholarly journals Moral Progress and Evolution: Knowledge Versus Understanding

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleonora Severini
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Progress ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Moral Understanding ◽  
Promising Strategy ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Strategy I ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Realist View

AbstractThe paper explores the interplay among moral progress, evolution and moral realism. Although it is nearly uncontroversial to note that morality makes progress of one sort or another, it is far from uncontroversial to define what constitutes moral progress. In a minimal sense, moral progress occurs when a subsequent state of affairs is better than a preceding one. Moral realists conceive “it is better than” as something like “it more adequately reflects moral facts”; therefore, on a realist view, moral progress can be associated with accumulations of moral knowledge. From an evolutionary perspective, on the contrary, since there cannot be something like moral knowledge, one might conclude there cannot even be such a thing as moral progress. More precisely, evolutionism urges us to ask whether we can acknowledge the existence of moral progress without being committed to moral realism. A promising strategy, I will argue, is to develop an account of moral progress based on moral understanding rather than moral knowledge. On this view, moral progress follows increases in moral understanding rather than accumulations of moral knowledge. Whether an understanding-based account of moral progress is feasible and what its implications for the notion itself of moral progress are, will be discussed.

Cautious Optimism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua May
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Enhancement ◽  
Limited Attention ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Learning And Development ◽  
Broad Implication ◽  
Moral Learning ◽  
Good Reasoning

This chapter briefly draws out some main lessons from the previous chapters and contains a discussion of some their implications for moral enhancement. We are capable of moral knowledge and virtue, in part because we do have a regard for reason that ultimately complicates the reason/emotion dichotomy. We do often fall short, but when we do, the problem is not with moral psychology in particular but the ways in which reason can be corrupted generally. One broad implication of cautious optimism is that the best method for increasing virtue won’t target our empathy or passions to the exclusion of our (often unconscious) reasoning. However, sound arguments aren’t enough, for human beings are fallible creatures with cognitive biases and limited attention spans. An intelligent populace is necessary, but so is moral technology, such as environments that nudge people to engage in good reasoning, not rationalization, particularly during moral learning and development.

Can Fiction be Philosophy?

1998 ◽  
pp. 23-30
Author(s):  
Margaret G. Holland
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Iris Murdoch ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
Moral Understanding ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Philosophy And Literature ◽  
Moral Claims

This paper examines the relation between philosophy and literature through an analysis of claims made by Martha Nussbaum regarding the contribution novels can make to moral philosophy. Perhaps her most controversial assertion is that some novels are themselves works of moral philosophy. I contrast Nussbaum’s view with that of Iris Murdoch. I discuss three claims which are fundamental to Nussbaum’s position: the relation between writing style and content; philosophy’s inadequacy in preparing agents for moral life because of its reliance on rules; and the usefulness of the moral work engaged in by readers of novels. The evaluation of these claims requires a discussion of the nature of philosophy. I find that Murdoch and Nussbaum agree on the ability of literature to contribute to moral understanding, but disagree on the issue of what philosophy is. Therefore, they disagree on the question of whether certain works of fiction are also works of philosophy. I argue that the task Nussbaum assigns philosophy is too broad. Through the use of critical and reflective methods, philosophy should examine and sort moral claims. Literary, philosophical and religious texts contribute to moral eduction; keeping them separate helps us appreciate their distinct contributions, as well as respect their distinct aims and methods. Therefore, I conclude that Nussbaum’s inclusion of certain novels in philosophy cannot be sustained.

Moral Understandings: Alternative “Epistemology” for a Feminist Ethics

Hypatia ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 15-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Urban Walker
Keyword(s):  
Moral Epistemology ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Feminist Critique ◽  
Feminist Ethics ◽  
Moral Understanding ◽  
Women's Voices ◽  
Philosophical Ethics ◽  
Prevailing View

Work on representing women's voices in ethics has produced a vision of moral understanding profoundly subversive of the traditional philosophical conception of moral knowledge. 1 explicate this alternative moral “epistemology,” identify how it challenges the prevailing view, and indicate some of its resources for a liberatory feminist critique of philosophical ethics.

Losing Moral Knowledge

2019 ◽  
pp. 151-191
Author(s):  
Sarah McGrath
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
Ronald Dworkin ◽  
Thomas Nagel ◽  
Moral Claims ◽  
The Difference

Some philosophers—including Gilbert Ryle, Ronald Dworkin, and Thomas Nagel—have held that there are important respects in which our cognitive relationship to morality is more secure than our cognitive relationship to ordinary empirical knowledge. I defend the claim that moral knowledge is susceptible to being lost in the same ways in which non-moral knowledge is, including by being forgotten and by being debunked. I offer a novel solution to Ryle’s puzzle about “forgetting the difference between right and wrong.” The chapter raises, and suggests answers to, a number of underexplored questions, including questions about the extent to which some cases of moral corruption are best understood as cognitive processes (i.e. processes involving a loss of knowledge), as well as questions about the kinds of considerations that could in principle make it reasonable for us to lose confidence even in moral claims that strike us as obviously correct.

Cautiously optimistic rationalism may not be cautious enough

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin F. Landy
Keyword(s):  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Judgments

Abstract May expresses optimism about the source, content, and consequences of moral judgments. However, even if we are optimistic about their source (i.e., reasoning), some pessimism is warranted about their content, and therefore their consequences. Good reasoners can attain moral knowledge, but evidence suggests that most people are not good reasoners, which implies that most people do not attain moral knowledge.

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