Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T17:04:58.813Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Moral reasoning is the process of asking moral questions and answering them

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 September 2019

Mark Alfano Open the ORCID record for Mark Alfano [Opens in a new window]
Mark Alfano*
Affiliation:
Ethics and Philosophy of Technology, Delft University of Technology, 2628 BX Delft, The [email protected] Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University, Fitzroy, VIC 3002, Australia.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Reasoning is the iterative, path-dependent process of asking questions and answering them. Moral reasoning is a species of such reasoning, so it is a matter of asking and answering moral questions, which requires both creativity and curiosity. As such, interventions and practices that help people ask more and better moral questions promise to improve moral reasoning.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 42 , 2019 , e147
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alfano, M. (2016) Moral psychology: An introduction. Polity.Google Scholar
Alfano, M. (2017) Twenty-first century perspectivism: The role of emotions in scientific inquiry. Studi di Estetica 7(1): 65–79.Google Scholar
Brady, M. (2013) Emotional insight: The epistemic role of emotional experience. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cushman, F. (2013) Action, outcome and value: A dual-system framework for morality. Personality and Social Psychology Review 17(3): 273–92.Google Scholar
Haidt, J. (2001) The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review 108:814–34.Google Scholar
Haidt, J. (2003) The moral emotions. In: Handbook of affective sciences, ed. Davidson, R. J., Scherer, K. R. & Goldsmith, H. H., pp. 852–70. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Iurino, K., Robinson, B., Christen, M., Stey, P. & Alfano, M. (2018) Constructing and validating a scale of inquisitive curiosity. In: The moral psychology of curiosity, ed. Inan, I., Watson, L., Whitcomb, D. & Yigit, S., pp. 157–81. Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Johnson-Laird, P. (2008) Mental models and deductive reasoning. In: Reasoning: Studies in human inference and its foundations, ed. Rips, L. & Adler, J.. pp. 207–22. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Khemlani, S., Orenes, I. & Johnson-Laird, P. (2012) Negation: A theory of its meaning, representation, and use. Journal of Cognitive Psychology 24(5): 541–59.Google Scholar
Koralus, P. & Alfano, M. (2017) Reasons-based moral judgment and the erotetic theory. In: Moral inferences, ed. Bonnefon, J.-F. & Trémolière, B., pp. 77–106. Routledge.Google Scholar
Koralus, P. & Mascarenhas, S. (2013) The erotetic theory of reasoning: Bridges between formal semantics and the psychology of propositional deductive inference. Philosophical Perspectives 27:312–65.Google Scholar
Landy, J. F. & Goodwin, G. P. (2015) Does incidental disgust amplify moral judgment? A meta-analytic review of experimental evidence. Perspectives on Psychological Science 10(4):518–36.Google Scholar
May, J. (2018) Regard for reason in the moral mind. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Prinz, J. (2016) Sentimentalism and the moral brain. In: Moral brains: The neuroscience of morality, ed. Matthew Liao, S., pp. 45–73. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rips, L. (1994) The psychology of proof. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, D. (2005) Consciousness and Mind. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shafir, E. (1993) Choosing versus rejecting: Why some options are both better and worse than others. Memory and Cognition 21(4):546–56.Google Scholar
Silvia, P. J., Wigert, B., Reiter-Palmon, R. & Kaufman, J. C. (2012) Assessing creativity with self-report scales: A review and empirical evaluation. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 6(1):19–34.Google Scholar
Tappolet, C. (2010) Emotion, motivation and action: The case of fear. In: Oxford handbook of philosophy of emotion, ed. Goldie, P., pp. 325–45. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Walsh, C. & Johnson-Laird, P. (2004) Coreference and reasoning. Memory and Cognition 32:96–106.Google Scholar
Watson, L. (2018) Educating for curiosity. In: The moral psychology of curiosity, ed. Inan, I., Watson, L., Whitcomb, D. & Yigit, S., pp. 293–309. Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar