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Does moral action depend on reasoning? Not really. W hatif most humans,regard less of their culture or religious beliefs or age or sex, chose the same option when faced with a moral conflict? What if those same people gave wildly different reasons for why they made their particular choices? This, in fact, is the state of affairs for much of our moral behavior. Recent research in human brain science and ancillary fields has shown that multiple factors feed into the largely automatic and deterministic processes that drive our moral decisions. Some theorists think that our brains possess a finite number of moral modules that have certain response biases. These uncon scious biases explain the reliability and predictability of our moral behavior, even though experimental subjects, when queried, will make up various stories about why they did one thing over another... CONTINUED ONLlNE.
MithaelGazwnig a is thedirectoro!the SAGE Cmter for the Study ofMind at tbe Uni versity of California, Santa Barbara. He ispresident of the Cognitive Neuroscience Institute andthe author of, amongmany other book, The Ethical Brain: The Science of Our Moral Dilemmas.
Yes, if... that means that moral action depends on reason. I prefer to put it t his way because we do
law of reason.
Less than it should.
Two distinctions will help to
My camera has a set of handy,
CONTINUED ONLINE.
clarifY this claim. The first is
point-and-shoot settings
Josh ua D. Creme is an assistant proftS5oTif
between intelligence and reason.
("portrait," "action, " "landscape")
psythologyat Harvard Universityand tbe director of
Intelligence is a power that looks
that enable a bumbler like me to
simply know. But moral action does not merely depend on reason.Moral action is rational action, because the moral law is a
"That's a deadly snake alright, but it's in a glass cage. Nothing to fear." Our automatic settings sometimes get things wrong, but we would be lost without them ...
th e MoralCogn ition L ab . He uses neuroscientific
andbehavioral methods 10 study moro/judgment and
outward, to the world around
take decent pictures most of the
decision-making, llS we/llls other traditionally
the intelligent animal. Speaking
time. It also has a manual mode
philosophica ltopics.
roughly, an intelligent animal is
that allows me to adjust every
one who learns from his
thing myself, which is great
experiences, displays some
for those rare
awareness of what causes what,
occasions when I want to try
and can use that awareness to solve problems. Reason, by
something fancy.
contrast, looks inward, to what is
A camera with
going on in the animal's own
both automatic
mind.A rational animal is aware
settings and a manual mode
of the grounds of her beliefs and
exemplifies an elegant solution
actions, of the way in which
to an ubiquitous design problem,
perception tends to influence her
namely the trade-off between
beliefs or desire
ejJiciencyandflexibility. The auto
tends to influence
matic settings are highly efficient,