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Moral Judgment, Action and Emotion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Bernard Harrison
Bernard Harrison
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
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Abstract

What makes us responsive, however occasionally, to moral demands? Why do people sometimes own up, go off to fight unwillingly in what they consider to be just wars, refrain from stealing a march on friends, and so on, even when they could by doing otherwise reap advantages far outweighing, in the scales of ordinary prudential rationality, any consequent disadvantage? Why has morality such a hold over us?

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 59 , Issue 229 , July 1984 , pp. 295 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1984

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References

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23 In its progress through various versions this paper has profited from criticism by Professor D. W., Hamlyn, Ruby, Meager, Professor, Kurt, Baier, and Richard, Rosenbluth among other contributors-to-discussion, and by Professor J. J. C., Smart, who read and commented on an earlier draft of thepresent version.Google Scholar