19 The Moral Mind

Abstract

This chapter discusses how morality might be partially innate, meaning organized, to some extent, in advance of experience. It begins by arguing for a broader conception of morality and suggests that most of the discussion of innateness to date has not been about morality per se; it has been about whether the psychology of harm and fairness is innate. Five hypotheses about the origins of moral knowledge and value are considered, and one of them (a form of flexible and generative modularity) is endorsed as being the best candidate. The importance of narrativity in moral functioning is discussed. In some respects, this is another corrective to what is seen as an overemphasis on deductive and calculative conceptions of value and rationality among both philosophers and psychologists. It is shown that a narrative approach to morality fits well with the nativist ‘five foundations’ view developed in the first part of the chapter, and also helps to explain how the intuitive, evolved foundations of morality are elaborated by cultural activity into the complex, diverse moral functioning that mature human beings display.

Moral judgment in adults with autism spectrum disorders

“…In fact, it has been proposed that moral judgments are based on intuitive, tacit processes, while explicit justifications only count as post hoc rationalizations (Cushman, Young, & Hauser, 2006;Haidt, 2001Haidt, , 2003. However, as the present findings showed, while it is possible that affective responses (i.e., feeling of aversiveness) might operate tacitly and enable to distinguish affect-backed violations from conventional violations in both groups, emotion information is available for conscious processes of moral reasoning and is consistently cited during justification by people with typical development.…”

“…doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2011.06.004 2001,2003) and that conscious reasoning only provides post hoc explanations for moral justifications. According to Haidt (2003), amongst moral emotions, prosocial emotions such as empathy, sympathy, concern and compassion, promote morally good behaviour by orienting us to the welfare of society or to the needs of persons other than the agent. In this regard, empathy can be regarded as the capacity to experience other people's emotions vicariously.…”

Boredom begs to differ: Differentiation from other negative emotions.

“…Of the 11 emotions, no less than four (anger, disgust, guilt, shame) have been linked to moral judgments in previous research (Haidt, 2003). Although we are not aware of empirical research indicating a direct link between moral judgment and boredom, some scholars have proposed that boredom breeds morally reprehensible behavior (e.g., destructiveness, see Fromm, 1963Fromm, /2004monstrous essence, see Heidegger, in Thiele, 1997).…”

Lying because we care: Compassion increases prosocial lying.

“…Compassion is an emotion elicited by appraisals of need or undeserved suffering (Goetz et al, 2010;Haidt, 2003;Lazarus, 1991), and is often associated with increased prosocial behavior (Batson & Shaw, 1991;Eisenberg, 2002). Compassion is evoked by witnessing or learning about others' physical or emotional pain (Batson et al, 1997;Condon & DeSteno, 2011;Eisenberg et al, 1989;Stellar, Cohen, Oveis, & Keltner, 2014;Stellar, Feinberg, & Keltner, 2014;Stellar, Manzo, Kraus, & Keltner, 2012;Van Kleef et al, 2008) or victimization (Cameron & Payne, 2011;Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2011a), and by viewing depictions of suffering others such as homeless or malnourished people (Oveis et al, 2009;Oveis, Horberg, & Keltner, 2010).…”

“…Philosophers and psychologists consider compassion to be the prototypical prosocial emotion, as it guides decisions about whom to help and how to help them (e.g., Cameron & Payne, 2012;Haidt, 2003;Nussbaum, 1996).…”