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  1. Nonhuman Moral Agency: A Practice-Focused Exploration of Moral Agency in Nonhuman Animals and Artificial Intelligence.Dorna Behdadi - 2023 - Dissertation, University of Gothenburg
    Can nonhuman animals and artificial intelligence (AI) entities be attributed moral agency? The general assumption in the philosophical literature is that moral agency applies exclusively to humans since they alone possess free will or capacities required for deliberate reflection. Consequently, only humans have been taken to be eligible for ascriptions of moral responsibility in terms of, for instance, blame or praise, moral criticism, or attributions of vice and virtue. Animals and machines may cause harm, but they cannot be appropriately ascribed (...)
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  • The disunity of moral judgment: Evidence and implications.David Sackris & Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen - 2022 - Philosophical Psychology 1:1-20.
    We argue that there is significant evidence for reconsidering the possibility that moral judgment constitutes a distinctive category of judgment. We begin by reviewing evidence and arguments from neuroscience and philosophy that seem to indicate that a diversity of brain processes result in verdicts that we ordinarily consider “moral judgments”. We argue that if these findings are correct, this is plausible reason for doubting that all moral judgments necessarily share common features: if diverse brain processes give rise to what we (...)
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  • Moral Rationalism on the Brain.Joshua May - 2023 - Mind and Language 38 (1):237-255.
    I draw on neurobiological evidence to defend the rationalist thesis that moral judgments are essentially dependent on reasoning, not emotions (conceived as distinct from inference). The neuroscience reveals that moral cognition arises from domain-general capacities in the brain for inferring, in particular, the consequences of an agent’s action, the agent’s intent, and the rules or norms relevant to the context. Although these capacities entangle inference and affect, blurring the reason/emotion dichotomy doesn’t preferentially support sentimentalism. The argument requires careful consideration of (...)
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  • Dual-process reflective equilibrium: rethinking the interplay between intuition and reflection in moral reasoning.Dario Cecchini - 2021 - Philosophical Explorations 24 (3):295-311.
    Dual-process theories of the mind emphasize how reasoning is an interplay between intuitive and reflective thinking. This paper aims to understand how the two types of processing interact in the moral domain. According to a ‘default-interventionist’ model of moral reasoning intuition and reflection are conflicting cognitions: intuitive thinking would elicit heuristic and deontological responses, whereas reflection would favour utilitarian judgements. However, the evidence for the default interventionist view is inconclusive and challenged by a growing amount of counterevidence in recent years. (...)
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  • Immorality and Irrationality.Alex Worsnip* - 2019 - Philosophical Perspectives 33 (1):220-253.
    Does immorality necessarily involve irrationality? The question is often taken to be among the deepest in moral philosophy. But apparently deep questions sometimes admit of deflationary answers. In this case we can make way for a deflationary answer by appealing to dualism about rationality, according to which there are two fundamentally distinct notions of rationality: structural rationality and substantive rationality. I have defended dualism elsewhere. Here, I’ll argue that it allows us to embrace a sensible – I will not say (...)
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  • (1 other version)The Limits of Emotion in Moral Judgment.Joshua May - 2018 - In Karen Jones & François Schroeter (eds.), The Many Moral Rationalisms. New York: Oxford Univerisity Press. pp. 286-306.
    I argue that our best science supports the rationalist idea that, independent of reasoning, emotions aren’t integral to moral judgment. There’s ample evidence that ordinary moral cognition often involves conscious and unconscious reasoning about an action’s outcomes and the agent’s role in bringing them about. Emotions can aid in moral reasoning by, for example, drawing one’s attention to such information. However, there is no compelling evidence for the decidedly sentimentalist claim that mere feelings are causally necessary or sufficient for making (...)
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  • Hume's Legacy: A Cognitive Science Perspective.Mark Collier - 2018 - In Angela Michelle Coventry & Alex Sager (eds.), _The Humean Mind_. New York: Routledge. pp. 434-445.
    Hume is an experimental philosopher who attempts to understand why we think, feel, and act as we do. But how should we evaluate the adequacy of his proposals? This chapter examines Hume’s account from the perspective of interdisciplinary work in cognitive science.
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  • Psychopathy, Agency, and Practical Reason.Monique Wonderly - 2020 - In Ruth Chang & Kurt Sylvan (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Practical Reason. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 262-275.
    Philosophers have urged that considerations about the psychopath’s capacity for practical rationality can help to advance metaethical debates. These debates include the role of rational faculties in moral judgment and action, the relationship between moral judgment and moral motivation, and the capacities required for morally responsible agency. I discuss how the psychopath’s capacity for practical reason features in these debates, and I identify several takeaway lessons from the relevant literature. Specifically, I show how the insights contained therein can illuminate the (...)
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  • Instrumental rationality in psychopathy: implications from learning tasks.Marko Jurjako & Luca Malatesti - 2016 - Philosophical Psychology 29 (5):717-731.
    The issue whether psychopathic offenders are practically rational has attracted philosophical attention. The problem is relevant in theoretical discussions on moral psychology and in those concerning the appropriate social response to the crimes of these individuals. We argue that classical and current experiments concerning the instrumental learning in psychopaths cannot directly support the conclusion that they have impaired instrumental rationality, construed as the ability for transferring the motivation by means-ends reasoning. In fact, we defend the different claim that these experiments (...)
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  • Are emotions necessary and sufficient for making moral judgments?Marco Aurélio Sousa Alves - 2013 - Ethic@ - An International Journal for Moral Philosophy 12 (1):113-126.
    Jesse Prinz (2006, 2007) claimed that emotions are necessary and sufficient for moral judgments. First of all, I clarify what this claim amounts to. The view that he labels emotionism will then be critically assessed. Prinz marshals empirical findings to defend a series of increasingly strong theses about how emotions are essential for moral judgments. I argue that the empirical support upon which his arguments are based is not only insufficient, but it even suggests otherwise, if properly interpreted. My criticism (...)
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  • Affective empathy as core moral agency: psychopathy, autism and reason revisited.Elisa Aaltola - 2014 - Philosophical Explorations 17 (1):76-92.
    Empathy has become a common point of debate in moral psychology. Recent developments in psychiatry, neurosciences and social psychology have led to the revival of sentimentalism, and the ‘empathy thesis’ has suggested that affective empathy, in particular, is a necessary criterion of moral agency. The case of psychopaths – individuals incapable of affective empathy and moral agency, yet capable of rationality – has been utilised in support of this case. Critics, however, have been vocal. They have asserted that the case (...)
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  • Disability and Moral Responsibility.Simo Vehmas - 2011 - TRAMES 15 (2):156-167.
    This article offers an introductory analysis of the philosophical and empirical considerations having to do with the significance of psychopathy, intellectual disability and ADHD regarding one’s moral responsibility. Moral responsibility comes in degrees and is ultimately determined on social grounds. Whether a certain diagnosis and its under­pinning neuro-cognitive impairment affects one’s cognitive, emotional and moral conduct, depends also on social and relational factors.
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  • Consequentialism and Moral Rationalism.Douglas W. Portmore - 2011 - In Mark Timmons (ed.), Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.
    IN THIS PAPER, I make a presumptive case for moral rationalism: the view that agents can be morally required to do only what they have decisive reason to do, all things considered. And I argue that this view leads us to reject all traditional versions of act‐consequentialism. I begin by explaining how moral rationalism leads us to reject utilitarianism.
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  • Collective Agents as Moral Actors.Säde Hormio - 2024 - In Säde Hormio & Bill Wringe (eds.), Collective Responsibility: Perspectives on Political Philosophy from Social Ontology. Springer.
    How should we make sense of praise and blame and other such reactions towards collective agents like governments, universities, or corporations? Collective agents can be appropriate targets for our moral feelings and judgements because they can maintain and express moral positions of their own. Moral agency requires being capable of recognising moral considerations and reasons. It also necessitates the ability to react reflexively to moral matters, i.e. to take into account new moral concerns when they arise. While members of a (...)
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  • Sensitive to Reasons: Moral Intuition and the Dual Process Challenge to Ethics.Dario Cecchini - 2022 - Dissertation,
    This dissertation is a contribution to the field of empirically informed metaethics, which combines the rigorous conceptual clarity of traditional metaethics with a careful review of empirical evidence. More specifically, this work stands at the intersection of moral psychology, moral epistemology, and philosophy of action. The study comprises six chapters on three distinct (although related) topics. Each chapter is structured as an independent paper and addresses a specific open question in the literature. The first part concerns the psychological features and (...)
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  • Famine, Affluence, and Amorality.David Sackris - 2021 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 17 (2):(A1)5-29.
    I argue that the debate concerning the nature of first-person moral judgment, namely, whether such moral judgments are inherently motivating or whether moral judgments can be made in the absence of motivation, may be founded on a faulty assumption: that moral judgments form a distinct kind that must have some shared, essential features in regards to motivation to act. I argue that there is little reason to suppose that first-person moral judgments form a homogenous class in this respect by considering (...)
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  • Motivational Externalism and Misdescribing Cases.Lim Daniel, Xi Chen & Yili Zhou - 2016 - American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 7 (4):218-219.
    Ryan Darby, Judith Edersheim, and Bruce Price (DEP) argue that patients with Behavioral-Variant Frontotemporal Dementia have intact moral knowledge. In effect, they assume a motivational externalist understanding of moral knowledge. We question this by probing the cases they present as evidence for their position.
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  • (1 other version)Experimental Moral Philosophy.Mark Alfano & Don Loeb - 2012 - In Ed Zalta (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Experimental moral philosophy began to emerge as a methodology inthe last decade of the twentieth century, a branch of the largerexperimental philosophy approach. From the beginning,it has been embroiled in controversy on a number of fronts. Somedoubt that it is philosophy at all. Others acknowledge that it isphilosophy but think that it has produced modest results at best andconfusion at worst. Still others think it represents an important advance., Before the research program can be evaluated, we should have someconception of (...)
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  • (1 other version)Experimental moral philosophy.Mark Alfano, Don Loeb & Alex Plakias - 2018 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:1-32.
    Experimental moral philosophy emerged as a methodology in the last decade of the twentieth century, as a branch of the larger experimental philosophy (X-Phi) approach. Experimental moral philosophy is the empirical study of moral intuitions, judgments, and behaviors. Like other forms of experimental philosophy, it involves gathering data using experimental methods and using these data to substantiate, undermine, or revise philosophical theories. In this case, the theories in question concern the nature of moral reasoning and judgment; the extent and sources (...)
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  • Moral cognition, affect, and psychopathy.Michelle Maiese - 2014 - Philosophical Psychology 27 (6):807-828.
    Few theorists would challenge the idea that affect and emotion directly influence decision-making and moral judgment. There is good reason to think that they also significantly assist in decision-making and judgment, and in fact are necessary for fully effective moral cognition. However, they are not sufficient. Deliberation and more reflective thought processes likewise play a crucial role, and in fact are inseparable from affective processes. I will argue that while the dual-process account of moral judgment set forth by Craigie (2011) (...)
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  • Direct Brain Interventions and Responsibility Enhancement.Elizabeth Shaw - 2014 - Criminal Law and Philosophy 8 (1):1-20.
    Advances in neuroscience might make it possible to develop techniques for directly altering offenders’ brains, in order to make offenders more responsible and law-abiding. The idea of using such techniques within the criminal justice system can seem intuitively troubling, even if they were more effective in preventing crime than traditional methods of rehabilitation. One standard argument against this use of brain interventions is that it would undermine the individual’s free will. This paper maintains that ‘free will’ (at least, as that (...)
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  • The Rediscovery of Common Sense Philosophy.Stephen Boulter - 2007 - Basingstoke, England: Palgrave-Macmillan.
    This book is a defence of the philosophy of common sense in the spirit of Thomas Reid and G.E. Moore, drawing on the work of Aristotle, evolutionary biology and psychology, and historical studies on the origins of early modern philosophy. It defines and explores common sense beliefs, and defends them from challenges from prominent philosophers.
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  • Moral rationalism and psychopathy: Affective responses to reason.Allen Coates - 2017 - Philosophical Psychology 30 (7):855-877.
    Evidence suggests that psychopaths’ notoriously immoral behavior is due to affective rather than rational deficits. This evidence could be taken to show that, contrary to moral rationalism, moral norms are not norms of reason. Rationalists could reply either that psychopaths’ behavior is in fact primarily due to rational deficits or that affects are involved in responding to rational norms. Drawing on the work of Antonio Damasio and colleagues, I argue the latter is the better defense of moral rationalism.
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  • Identifications, Volitions and the Case of Successful Psychopaths.Somogy Varga - 2015 - Dialectica 69 (1):87-106.
    While many profound philosophical questions arise about psychopaths, I wish to draw attention to two limitations in current debates. First, philosophers mainly deal with offender and forensic populations neglecting so-called ‘successful’ psychopaths. Second, philosophers mainly focus on the issue of empathy and responsibility, while relatively little attention is paid to volitional aspects. I address these two limitations together and argue that ‘successful’ psychopaths are volitionally constrained. In order to grasp and explore this deficiency, I argue in favour of a more (...)
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  • Autonomy, enactivism, and psychopathy.Michelle Maiese - 2021 - Philosophical Explorations 25 (1):19-41.
    Most philosophical discussions of psychopathy have centered around its significance in relation to empathy, moral cognition, or moral responsibility. However, related questions about the extent to...
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  • Psychopathy and responsibility theory.Paul Litton - 2010 - Philosophy Compass 5 (8):676-688.
    Psychopathy presents a difficult challenge to moral and criminal responsibility theorists. Persons with the disorder have an impaired capacity for empathy and other moral emotions, and fail to feel the force of moral considerations. They have some rational impairments, but they reason adequately to manipulate, con, and exploit their victims, and otherwise to engage successfully in antisocial behavior. Is it appropriate to hold them morally responsible for their wrongdoing? Should the law hold psychopaths criminally responsible? This essay discusses philosophical debates (...)
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  • What is Moral Reasoning?Leland F. Saunders - 2013 - Philosophical Psychology (1):1-20.
    What role does moral reasoning play in moral judgment? More specifically, what causal role does moral reasoning have in the production of moral judgments? Recently, many philosophers and psychologists have attempted to answer this question by drawing on empirical data. However, these attempts fall short because there has been no sustained attention to the question of what moral reasoning is. This paper addresses this problem, by providing a general account of moral reasoning in terms of a capacity, and suggests how (...)
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  • Cognitive-Enhancing Drugs, Behavioral Training and the Mechanism of Cognitive Enhancement.Emma Peng Chien - 2013 - In Elisabeth Hildt & Andreas G. Franke (eds.), Cognitive Enhancement: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. Springer. pp. 139-144.
    In this chapter, I propose the mechanism of cognitive enhancement based on studies of cognitive-enhancing drugs and behavioral training. I argue that there are mechanistic differences between cognitive-enhancing drugs and behavioral training due to their different enhancing effects. I also suggest possible mechanisms for cognitive-enhancing drugs and behavioral training and for the synergistic effects of their simultaneous application.
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  • Will the Real Moral Judgment Please Stand Up?Jeanette Kennett & Cordelia Fine - 2009 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 12 (1):77-96.
    The recent, influential Social Intuitionist Model of moral judgment (Haidt, Psychological Review 108, 814–834, 2001) proposes a primary role for fast, automatic and affectively charged moral intuitions in the formation of moral judgments. Haidt’s research challenges our normative conception of ourselves as agents capable of grasping and responding to reasons. We argue that there can be no ‘real’ moral judgments in the absence of a capacity for reflective shaping and endorsement of moral judgments. However, we suggest that the empirical literature (...)
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  • The depths and shallows of psychological externalism.Andrew Sneddon - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 138 (3):393 - 408.
    This paper examines extant ways of classifying varieties of psychological externalism and argues that they imply a hitherto unrecognized distinction between shallow and deep externalism. The difference is between starting points: shallowly externalist hypotheses begin with the attribution of psychological states to individuals, just as individualistic hypotheses do, whereas deeply externalistic hypotheses begin with agent-environment interaction as the basis of cognitive processes and attribute psychological states to individuals as necessary for such interaction. The over-arching aim is to show how deep (...)
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  • As you were? Moral philosophy and the aetiology of moral experience.Garrett Cullity - 2006 - Philosophical Explorations 9 (1):117 – 132.
    What is the significance of empirical work on moral judgement for moral philosophy? Although the more radical conclusions that some writers have attempted to draw from this work are overstated, few areas of moral philosophy can remain unaffected by it. The most important question it raises is in moral epistemology. Given the explanation of our moral experience, how far can we trust it? Responding to this, the view defended here emphasizes the interrelatedness of moral psychology and moral epistemology. On this (...)
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  • Rational Requirements for Moral Motivation: The Psychopath's Open Question.Maria L. Montello - unknown
    Psychopaths pose a challenge to those who make claims about the strength of moral assessments. These individuals are entirely unmoved by the moral rules that they articulate and purportedly espouse. Psychopaths appear rationally intact but are emotionally broken. In some cases, they commit horrendous crimes yet show no guilt, no remorse. Sentimentalists claim that the empirical evidence about psychopaths’ affective deficits supports that moral judgment is rooted in emotion and that psychopaths do not make genuine moral judgments—they can’t. Here, I (...)
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