New Trends of Cognitive Science in Ethical and Legal Reflection

Abstract

In recent years a particular perspective has increased in importance and now forms a central area in the study of ethics and law, namely, the perspective of cognitive science and the modern theory of the human mind. Yet, there are a number of different approaches within this framework – a fact that should not be overlooked. The most important emerging views include neo-emotivist neuroethics, approaches of evolutionary psychology and a mentalist theory of ethics and law. Neo-emotivist neuroethics identifies morality with emotional reactions that are hardwired in human cognition, beyond which utility calculations reign, while evolutionary psychology takes morality as an evolved optimization device for gene-reproduction. On the other hand, a mentalist theory of ethics and law regards morality and the law as complex, historically and socially embedded constructions on the basis of enabling higher mental faculties, governed by abstract, non-emotional, foundational principles of – among others - justice and altruism that are part of the nature of the human mind.