Biology and Evolutionary Moral Psychology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Fedyk
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Evolutionary Moral Psychology

This chapter argues that it is not possible to make meaningful progress in moral psychology by attempting to derive conclusions about moral cognition from premises describing patterns of human behaviour that could have been adaptive in the late Pleistocene. The reason these inferences fail is that it is not possible to derive proximate explanations from ultimate explanations and vice-versa.

Moral Psychology And Artificial Agents (Part 1): Ontologically Categorizing Bio-Cultural Humans

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Laakasuo ◽  
Anton Berg ◽  
Jukka Sundvall ◽  
Marianna Drosinou ◽  
Volo Herzon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Artificial Agents ◽  
Mind Perception ◽  
Ontological Categories

In this chapter, we will provide theoretical background of discussion on issues related to AIs. Some of the main topics, theories and frameworks are mind perception and moral cognition, moral psychology, evolutionary psychology, trans-humanism and ontological categories shaped by evolution.

scholarly journals Précis of Regard for Reason in the Moral Mind

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua May
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Moral Thought ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Debunking Arguments ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Commonsense Morality

Abstract Regard for Reason in the Moral Mind argues that a careful examination of the scientific literature reveals a foundational role for reasoning in moral thought and action. Grounding moral psychology in reason then paves the way for a defense of moral knowledge and virtue against a variety of empirical challenges, such as debunking arguments and situationist critiques. The book attempts to provide a corrective to current trends in moral psychology, which celebrate emotion over reason and generate pessimism about the psychological mechanisms underlying commonsense morality. Ultimately, there is rationality in ethics not just despite but in virtue of the neurobiological and evolutionary materials that shape moral cognition and motivation.

Moral Psychology and the Unity of Morality

Utilitas ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES G. QUIGLEY
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Moral Relevance ◽  
Evolutionary Account ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Moral Force

Jonathan Haidt's research on moral cognition has revealed that political liberals moralize mostly in terms of Harm and Fairness, whereas conservatives moralize in terms of those plus loyalty to Ingroup, respect for Authority, and Purity (or IAP). Some have concluded that the norms of morality encompass a wide variety of subject matters with no deep unity. To the contrary, I argue that the conservative position is partially debunked by its own lights. IAP norms’ moral relevance depends on their tendency to promote welfare (especially to prevent harm). I argue that all moral agents, including conservatives, are committed to that claim at least implicitly. I then argue that an evolutionary account of moral cognition partially debunks the view that welfare-irrelevant IAP norms have moral force. Haidt's own normative commitments are harmonized by this view: IAP norms are more important than liberals often realize, yet morality is at bottom all about promoting welfare.

Moral Psychology And Artificial Agents (Part 2): The Transhuman Connection

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Laakasuo ◽  
Jukka Sundvall ◽  
Anton Berg ◽  
Jussi Palomäki ◽  
Marianna Drosinou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Artificial Agents ◽  
Wide Range

In this chapter we focus on some of the problems that novel trans-humanistic technologies pose to our moral cognition. We use an interdisciplinary approach for analyzing these problems and use a wide range of theories from e.g evolutionary psychology, moral psychology, anthropology and cognitive science.

How Ecological Collectives are Morally Considerable

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Baird Callicott
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Human Microbiome ◽  
First Century ◽  
Moral Considerability ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Evolutionary Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Ontology

Populations, species, biotic communities, ecosystems, landscapes, biomes, and the biosphere are the referents of “ecological collectives.” The essence-accident moral ontology prevailing in twentieth-century moral philosophy cannot, while the theory of moral sentiments originating with Hume, biologized by Darwin, and ecologized by Leopold can, endow ecological collectives with moral considerability. The Hume-Darwin-Leopold approach to environmental ethics has been validated by twenty-first-century evolutionary moral psychology, while the twenty-first-century analysis of the human microbiome has revealed that erstwhile human “individuals” are themselves ecological collectives, thus rendering future ethical theory exclusively concerned with ecological collectives. To reconceptualize ourselves as moral beings in relational, communal, and collective terms is a matter of the greatest urgency for twenty-first century moral philosophy.

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