RT Book, Section

A1 Sinnott‐Armstrong, Walter
A1 Young, Liane
A1 Cushman, Fiery
T1 246Moral Intuitions
T2 The Moral Psychology Handbook
A2 Doris, John M.
A2 The Moral Psychology Research Group
YR 2010
DO 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199582143.003.0008
SP 0
SN 9780199582143
PB Oxford University Press
AB Moral intuitions are strong, stable, immediate moral beliefs. Moral philosophers
ask when they are justified. This question cannot be answered separately from a
psychological question: How do moral intuitions arise? Their reliability depends
upon their source. This chapter develops and argues for a new theory of how moral
intuitions arise—that they arise through heuristic processes best understood as
unconscious attribute substitutions. That is, when asked whether something has the
attribute of moral wrongness, people unconsciously substitute a different question
about a separate but related heuristic attribute (such as emotional impact).
Evidence for this view is drawn from psychology and neuroscience, and competing
views of moral heuristics are contrasted. It is argued that moral intuitions are
not direct perceptions and, in many cases, are unreliable sources of evidence for
moral claims.
RD 3/28/2024
UL https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199582143.003.0008