The Normative Significance of Cognitive Science Reconsidered

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (280) ◽  
pp. 502-523
Author(s):  
Dustin Locke
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Normative Significance ◽  
Moral Theorizing ◽  
Scientific Results ◽  
Epistemological Sophistication

Abstract Josh Greene famously argued that his cognitive-scientific results undermine deontological moral theorizing. Greene is wrong about this: at best, his research has revealed that at least some characteristically deontological moral judgments are sensitive to factors that we deem morally irrelevant. This alone is not enough to undermine those judgments. However, cognitive science could someday tell us more: it could tell us that in forming those judgments, we treat certain factors as reasons to believe as we do. If we independently deem such factors to be morally irrelevant, such a result would undermine those judgments and any moral theorizing built upon them. This paper attempts to bring charity, clarity, and epistemological sophistication to Greene's argument and those like it.

scholarly journals The Normative Significance of Empirical Moral Psychology

Diametros ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (64) ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Tomasz Żuradzki
Keyword(s):  
Brain Imaging ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Behavioral Data ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Empirical Methods ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Normative Significance

Many psychologists have tried to reveal the formation and processing of moral judgments by using a variety of empirical methods: behavioral data, tests of statistical significance, and brain imaging. Meanwhile, some scholars maintain that the new empirical findings of the ways we make moral judgments question the trustworthiness and authority of many intuitive ethical responses. The aim of this special issue is to encourage scholars to rethink how, if at all, it is possible to draw any normative conclusions by discovering the psychological processes underlying moral judgments.

Mythogenesis and Anthropogenesis

2021 ◽  
pp. 57-67
Author(s):  
Andrey P. Zabiyako ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Modern Human Behavior ◽  
Scientific Results ◽  
The Way

In the period of the 19th – beginning of the 21th century in the study of mythol­ogy three paradigms of the study of mythogenesis have consistently dominated – historical, non-historical and historical-cognitive. The historical-cognitive para­digm is based on the latest scientific results in the field of archeology, anthro­pology and cognitive science. The modern model of anthropogenesis assumes the existence of general regularities of development of three types of Homo – Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans. There are reasons that are not only Homo sapiens, but also the Neanderthals and Denisovans had high cognitive ca­pabilities and signs of modern human behavior. The most important foundations of mythogenesis are the functioning of language and the activity of the imagina­tion. All three populations of ancient mankind reached a cognitive minimum, which opened the way to mythogenesis. Signs of mythogenesis are clearly recorded no later than the time of the transition from the Middle to Upper Pale­olithic, during the Early Aurignacian, but the beginning of this process goes back to an earlier period.

Experimental Philosophy

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Knobe
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Cultural Work ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Cross Cultural Differences ◽  
Key Points

The aim of the article is to review existing work in experimental philosophy. The experimental philosophy seeks to examine the phenomena that have been traditionally associated with philosophy using the methods that have more recently been developed within cognitive science. Conceptual analysis frequently relies on appeals to intuition, but it is rarely made clear precisely whose intuitions are being discussed. The emphasis in cross-cultural work in experimental philosophy has been shifting toward the study of moral judgments, with papers exploring cross-cultural differences in intuitions about consequentialism and moral responsibility. Philosophers have been working on the relationship between moral responsibility and determinism. One of the key points of contention is whether moral responsibility and determinism are compatible or incompatible. Philosophers working within the framework of the analytic project have long engaged in the study of people's intuitions, but their real interest has not typically been in human beings and the way they think. They work to understand the true nature of the properties and relations that people's concepts pick out. Some philosophers believe that the most important and fundamental issues are somehow getting overlooked as researchers turn more and more to empirically informed work in cognitive science.

Buddhism and Ethics

Buddhism ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Cozort
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Applied Ethics ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Ethical Principles ◽  
Buddhist Ethics ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
Early Buddhism ◽  
Western Psychology

Inasmuch as the Buddhist ideal is human perfection, ethics are a particularly important area. Ethics (śīla) is one of the three trainings (with insight and meditation) that lead to enlightenment. Ethics can be approached in several ways: many of the following works are “normative,” seeking to establish which ethical principles are foundational and what conclusions one might draw from that concerning specific ethical problems (see Foundations, Early Buddhism, Madhyamaka, East Asian Traditions, and Tibetan Traditions). Some are “meta-ethical,” reflecting on the overall nature of Buddhist ethics or the meaning of moral terms (see Nature of Buddhist Ethics). Some are examples of “applied ethics,” focusing on specific rules (see Early Buddhism and Vinaya). Some are “descriptive,” telling us how people actually behave (see especially East Asian Traditions and Tibetan Traditions and the works under Perspectives on Contemporary Issues). Finally, some are “comparative,” reflecting on what Western psychology or cognitive science can tell us about Buddhist moral judgments (see Phenomenology of Buddhist Moral Judgments and Buddhist Ethics and Cognitive Sciences).

Normative Implications

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eyal Zamir ◽  
Doron Teichman
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Heuristics And Biases ◽  
Human Welfare ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Behavioral Studies ◽  
Normative Significance ◽  
Normative Implications

This chapter discusses the normative implications of the psychological findings documenting deviations from rationality, with particular focus on fundamental issues that cut across different legal fields. It first outlines the contribution of happiness studies and heuristics-and-biases research to theories of human welfare and the formulation of normative theories. The chapter then focuses on the normative significance of prevailing moral judgments (as studied by moral psychologists) for legal policymaking. Moving on to more pragmatic issues of lawmaking, the chapter examines two major implications of behavioral studies for setting the goals of legal norms: preventing the exploitation of people’s cognitive biases by others, and protecting people from their own fallibility. Finally, turning from goals to means, the discussion highlights the contribution of behavioral studies to the design of disclosure duties and behaviorally informed regulation (nudges).

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.

Language as a mental travel guide

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles P. Davis ◽  
Gerry T. M. Altmann ◽  
Eiling Yee
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Travel Guide

Abstract Gilead et al.'s approach to human cognition places abstraction and prediction at the heart of “mental travel” under a “representational diversity” perspective that embraces foundational concepts in cognitive science. But, it gives insufficient credit to the possibility that the process of abstraction produces a gradient, and underestimates the importance of a highly influential domain in predictive cognition: language, and related, the emergence of experientially based structure through time.

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