Morality for Humans

Morality for Humans Ethical Understanding from the Perspective of Cognitive Science

by Mark Johnson

University of Chicago Press, 2014
Cloth: 978-0-226-11340-1 | Paper: 978-0-226-32494-4 | Electronic: 978-0-226-11354-8
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226113548.001.0001

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ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYREVIEWSTABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

What is the difference between right and wrong? This is no easy question to answer, yet we constantly try to make it so, frequently appealing to some hidden cache of cut-and-dried absolutes, whether drawn from God, universal reason, or societal authority. Combining cognitive science with a pragmatist philosophical framework in Morality for Humans: Ethical Understanding from the Perspective of Cognitive Science, Mark Johnson argues that appealing solely to absolute principles and values is not only scientifically unsound but even morally suspect. He shows that the standards for the kinds of people we should be and how we should treat one another—which we often think of as universal—are in fact frequently subject to change. And we should be okay with that. Taking context into consideration, he offers a remarkably nuanced, naturalistic view of ethics that sees us creatively adapt our standards according to given needs, emerging problems, and social interactions.

Ethical naturalism is not just a revamped form of relativism. Indeed, Johnson attempts to overcome the absolutist-versus-relativist impasse that has been one of the most intractable problems in the history of philosophy. He does so through a careful and inclusive look at the many ways we reason about right and wrong. Much of our moral thought, he shows, is automatic and intuitive, gut feelings that we follow up and attempt to justify with rational analysis and argument. However, good moral deliberation is not limited merely to intuitive judgments supported after the fact by reasoning. Johnson points out a crucial third element: we imagine how our decisions will play out, how we or the world would change with each action we might take. Plumbing this imaginative dimension of moral reasoning, he provides a psychologically sophisticated view of moral problem solving, one perfectly suited for the embodied, culturally embedded, and ever-developing human creatures that we are.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Mark Johnson is the Philip H. Knight Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Oregon. He is the author of several books, including The Meaning of the Body, The Body in the Mind, and Moral Imagination, and coauthor, with George Lakoff, of Metaphors We Live By and Philosophy in the Flesh.

REVIEWS

“In Morality for Humans, Johnson has his hands on what counts in life: how moral appraisals are not separate from intelligence, aesthetic sensibility, flexibility, imagination, or creativity. In fact, that is how the book unfolds, by showing the interrelationship of these constructs. The end is human flourishing, respect for the unifying sensibilities of our experiences and their complexities, and a positive sense of well-being.”

— Jay Schulkin, Georgetown University

“Morality for Humans is a deep and important book on ethics and on the cognitive science of morality. Mark Johnson is a well-known founder of the movement for empirically responsible ethics that began in the early 1990’s, and in Morality for Humans he manages to synthesize his seminal work on moral imagination, metaphor, analogical reasoning, and practical problem-solving with deep thinking about how morality connects with the larger project of living meaningfully, with purpose, in a way that matters and makes a difference. At a time when too much moral psychology is absorbed with brain scans of college students solving ecologically invalid dilemmas about runaway trolleys, Johnson’s is a mature work that examines morality in the human ecologies in which it resides and provides wisdom about the contours of a good human life.”

— Owen Flanagan, author of Varieties of Moral Personality

“Morality for Humans is an original work of philosophy, soundly researched and clearly argued. Johnson effectively critiques our traditional views of morality and moral reasoning as seriously flawed because they rely on faulty and outdated views of human nature, moral psychology, and reasoning. He provides instead a stimulating picture of morality as involving open inquiry that requires imagination rather than fixed, absolute rules. Johnson is a distinguished philosopher, and this book represents a worthy addition to his corpus and to philosophical reflection on the important relations between embodied mind and morality.”

— Richard Shusterman, author of Thinking through the Body

“A welcome renewal and defense of John Dewey's ethical naturalism, which Johnson claims is the only morality ‘fit for actual human beings.’ The book straddles the divide between questions in moral psychology—What values do we have? Where did they come from? What role does reason play in moral deliberation?—and questions of normative and metaethics—From where do values get genuine normative authority? How do we properly rank our values when they compete with each other? These questions weave together throughout the book. . . . . He has set the stage for a promising dialogue, and we can look forward to his future contributions to the conversation.”

— Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

“Traditionally, moral reasoning has been seen as a matter of conscious analysis—to identify pre-existing moral principles and then apply them. Cognitive science reveals that this cannot be correct, since much moral thinking happens subconsciously. As a result of experiments in moral psychology, many scientists have concluded that intuitive judgements come first, followed later, if at all, by rational justification. That's fine as far as it goes, says Johnson. But he recognises a key third process, which he calls ‘imaginative moral deliberation’—and this is where his real insight comes.”

— New Scientist

“An excellent choice for any philosopher seeking to understand what it is like to navigate moral terrain with the eye of a cognitive scientist, or for any cognitive scientist wishing to apply his knowledge to pragmatist ethics.”

— Review of Metaphysics

Preface

Introduction: The Need for Ethical Naturalism
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226113548.003.0000
[non-naturalism, naturalistic ethics, cognitive science]
The Introduction explains the difference between non-naturalistic and naturalistic views of morality, illustrating the former with examples from Judeo-Christian traditions, Kantian rational ethics, and G.E. Moore's view. Johnson then gives a brief account of some of the chief ways in which cognitive science research undermines the basic assumptions of non-naturalism and calls for a scientifically responsible naturalistic view of moral cognition and judgment. (pages 1 - 27)

1. Moral Problem-Solving as an Empirical Inquiry
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226113548.003.0001
[experiential kinds, problem-solving, moral inquiry, Kantian moral judgment]
Research on human cognition challenges the commonsense view that experience comes divided into discrete kinds--moral, political, economic, aesthetic, theoretical, etc. If no experience is intrinsically and exclusively moral, then we do not need a special capacity for "moral" judgment. Instead, moral deliberation is a form of everyday problem solving inquiry, and, as such, it makes use of the same cognitive functions and the same modes of empirical knowledge that we employ in making sense of and transforming our world. (pages 28 - 47)

2. Where Are Our Values Bred?—Sources of Moral Norms
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226113548.003.0002
[moral norms, value, foundations of moral systems, Jonathan Haidt, moral pluralism]
This chapter begins with an account of the nature of value as relative to the needs, desires, and purposes of organisms. Therefore, noting is valuable "in itself." Since there is no distinctly and uniquely moral experience, there is no need for a unique source of exclusively moral norms. Instead, our values arise from our biological needs, our interpersonal relationships, our larger communal practices, and our desire for meaning and well-being. These many values, while not necessarily universal, show up in moral systems around the world, and this is compatible with Jonathan Haidt's postulation of six "foundations" of moralities. (pages 48 - 72)

3. Intuitive Processes of Moral Cognition
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226113548.003.0003
[faculty psychology, emotion, moral feeling, social intuitionist model, Damasio]
Cognitive science research shows the woeful inadequacy of faculty psychology, which posits innate mental capacities as the basis of all thought and judgment. In its place, we need a more cognitively realistic "social intuitionist" (Haidt) account of moral cognition that recognizes at least two fundamental processes: an intuitive, fast, unconscious, automatic track, followed by an after-the-fact, conscious, reflective process of justificatory reasoning. Antonio Damasio's account of homeostasis and emotions provides a way to flesh out the operation of the intuitive dimensions of moral appraisal. (pages 73 - 88)

4. Moral Deliberation as Cognition, Imagination, and Feeling
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226113548.003.0004
[Deliberation, moral imagination, dramatic rehearsal, moral feeling, moral simulation]
In addition to the increasingly popular ideas of a two-track (intuitive and justificatory) view of moral thinking, Johnson argues that there is also a third track, in which we explore in imagination how our situation might develop under the guidance of various principles and values. He develops a Deweyan account of moral deliberation as a process of dramatic imaginative rehearsal of possibilities for action in a given situation. This imaginative process is developed in terms of recent experimental research on cognitive simulation as the basis for human understanding. (pages 89 - 111)

5. The Nature of “Reasonable” Moral Deliberation
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226113548.003.0005
[moral deliberation, reasonableness, rationality, criticism, the ethical project, normative components of judgment]
What makes a process of moral cognition reasonable is not its conformity to some pre-given rational structure, but rather its role in transforming our experience in a way that resolves conflict and tension and constructs a harmonious relation of plural ends. The 'better' judgment is the one which enriches the meaning of our situation, resolves tensions, and leads to constructive action. However, there are no absolute standards for conducting such moral exploration. Ethical reflection is what Philip Kitcher calls an ongoing "ethical project." The chapter ends with an account, following Flanagan, of how there can be a normative component to our reasoning without having absolute values, and without claiming to deduce an 'ought' from an 'is.' (pages 112 - 136)

6. There Is No Moral Faculty
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226113548.003.0006
[moral faculty, moral instinct, the Linguistic Analogy, Hauser]
Some ethical naturalists have been attracted to John Rawls's notion that our moral understanding can be modeled on our linguistic understanding. Johnson does not object to this "Linguistic Analogy," but takes issue with some recent versions of it that see our moral judgments as the product of an innate moral faculty. He therefore gives a detailed analysis of Marc Hauser's version of moral instinct theory, arguing that it is scientifically unsound and constitutes a regression to an outdated faculty psychology that tries to secure a set of universal constraints on our moral judgments. If there is no unique set of moral experiences or moral judgments, we do not need to posit a moral faculty to generate them. (pages 137 - 162)

7. Moral Fundamentalism Is Immoral
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226113548.003.0007
[moral fundamentalism, moral absolutism, moral concepts, literalism]
This chapter describes the powerful lure of moral fundamentalism--the doctrine that there exist foundational moral truths that take the form of either absolute, unconditional, universally binding moral laws or a set of absolute and foundational moral facts. Moral fundamentalism is based partly on a mistaken view of moral concepts as literal, determinate, and unchanging. This view has been dramatically undermined by empirical research on human mind, thought, and values coming out of the cognitive sciences over the past three decades. Johnson illustrates this with an analysis of the concept of moral personhood that undermines any foundationalist or absolutist moral project. Not only is moral fundamentalism scientifically suspect, it is also immoral in the way it cuts off the very moral exploration we most need to address our life problems. (pages 163 - 191)

8. The Making of a Moral Self
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226113548.003.0008
[Selfhood, conscience, conscientiousness, moral imagination, moral ontology]
Our self is a self-in-process, a self that both constrains our moral values and judgments, and is also continually transformed through our experiences and actions. We do not simply discover a set of basic values and principles, but rather we are like moral artists who employ materials at hand and utilize the products of previous activities in order to compose situations and mold our character. The kind of self we ought to strive to develop is therefore what Dewey called a conscientious self. Conscientiousness seeks an ongoing reflective engagement with our developing situation that deepens meaning, enriches our understanding, and frees our human capacities for care and flourishing. Johnson gives an illustrative example of conscientious moral reflection by examining the issue of gay marriage. We are not "little gods" who have access to transcendent moral absolutes; rather, we are imaginative moral animals who can transform our experience for the better through conscientious imaginative moral inquiry. (pages 192 - 222)

Acknowledgments

Notes

References

Index