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Type 2 Moral Cognition

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An Integrative Model of Moral Deliberation

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Abstract

This chapter describes the types of cognitions operating in the standard forms of moral reasoning. These include deductive reasoning, analysis, induction, and coherence-based reasoning. The strengths and limits of these cognitive processes are assessed.

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Notes

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    See Jonathan Haidt and Craig Joseph’s analysis of this kind of research in J. Haidt and C. Joseph (2007) ‘The Moral Mind: How Five Sets of Innate Intuitions Guide the Development of Many Culture-Specific Virtues and, Perhaps Even Modules’, in P. Carruthers, S. Laurence, and S. Stich (eds) The Innate Mind, Volume 3, Foundations and the Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 373–4.

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    Facione, Critical Thinking, 9; and Scheffer and Rubenfeld, ‘A Consensus Statement’, 358.

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    Beauchamp, ‘A Defense’, 266.

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    J. Dewey (1910) How We Think (Boston: Heath), 72–8.

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    G. McGee (2003) ‘Pragmatic Method and Bioethics’, in G. McGee (ed.) Pragmatic Bioethics, 2nd edn (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 30–1.

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    B. M. Barber and T. Odean (2001) ‘Boys Will Be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116, 261–92.

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    This is a central point of N. N. Taleb (2007) The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (New York: Random House, Inc.).

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    C. S. Knott, N. Coombs, E. Stamatakis, and J. P. Biddulph (2015) ‘All Cause Mortality and the Case for Age Specific Alcohol Consumption Guidelines: Pooled Analyses of Up to 10 Population-Based Cohorts’, BMJ, 350, h384, http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h384, date accessed 21 July 2015.

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  43. 43.

    See, for example, Simon, ‘A Third View’, 511–86; and H. Prakken (2011) ‘Argumentation without Arguments’, Argumentation 25, 171–84.

  44. 44.

    N. Goodman (1983) Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, 4th edn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 64–8.

  45. 45.

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  46. 46.

    N. Daniels (1996) Justice and Justification: Reflective Equilibrium in Theory and in Practice (New York: Cambridge University Press), 22.

  47. 47.

    Daniels, Justice and Justification; M. C. Nussbaum (1990) Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press), 172–6; and M. Benjamin (2003) Philosophy and This Actual World: An Introduction to Practical Philosophical Inquiry (Lanham, MD: Roman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.), 119.

  48. 48.

    Much more will be said about this in a later chapter. See Daniels, Justice and Justification, 22–4; and M. R. Depaul (2006) ‘Intuitions in Moral Inquiry’, in D. Copp (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory (New York: Oxford University Press), 599–604.

  49. 49.

    This appears true of the example of application in T. L. Beauchamp and J. F. Childress (2001) Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 5th edn (New York: Oxford University Press), 399.

  50. 50.

    W. van der Burg and T. van Willigenburg (1998) ‘Introduction’, in W. van der Burg and T. van Willigenburg (eds) Reflective Equilibrium: Essays in Honour of Robert Heeger (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic), 9.

  51. 51.

    J. S. B. T. (2002) ‘Logic and Human Reasoning: An Assessment of the Deduction Paradigm’, Psychological Bulletin, 128, 981–2.

  52. 52.

    A. Tversky and D. Kahneman (1983) ‘Extensional Versus Intuitive Reasoning: The Conjunction Fallacy in Probability Judgment’, Psychological Review, 90, 293–315.

  53. 53.

    A. Tversky and D. Kahneman (1974) ‘Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases’, Science, 185, 1124–31.

  54. 54.

    G. Harmon, K. Mason, and W. Sinnott-Armstrong (2010) ‘Moral Reasoning’, in J. M. Doris and the Moral Psychology Research Group (eds) The Moral Psychology Handbook (New York: Oxford University Press), 218–20; and S. Passini (2014) ‘The Effect of Personal Orientations toward Intergroup Relations on Moral Reasoning’, Journal of Moral Reasoning, 43, 89–103.

  55. 55.

    This intensity at times reminds one of the intensity found among political activists who are utterly certain of the rightness of their positions. See P.M. Fernbach, T. Rogers, C. R. Fox, and S. A. Sloman (2013) ‘Political Extremism Is Supported by an Illusion of Understanding’, Psychological Science, 24, 939–46.

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  1. Wayland Baptist University, Texas Wichita Falls, Texas, USA

    J. Jeffrey Tillman

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Tillman, J.J. (2016). Type 2 Moral Cognition. In: An Integrative Model of Moral Deliberation. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-49022-3_5

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