Related Info Links
More by Authors Links
News and Announcements
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Cognitivist Presumptions of Moral Realism in Justification of Moral Truths
Show Less
1 Düzce Üniversitesi, Sanat, Tasarım ve Mimarlık Fakültesi, Görsel İletişim Tasarımı Bölümü 81620, Düzce,
Türkiye
Received: 17 April 2024 | Published online: 11 June 2024
© 2024 by the Authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
Abstract
This study critically examines the foundational principles of impartiality and value independence advocated by moral realist epistemologies in the pursuit of objectivity. Central to moral realists is the cognitivist presupposition necessitating a clear distinction between cognitive and emotional components inherent in moral judgments. The investigation focuses on the cognitive-emotional dichotomy underlying the moral realist perspectives of David Enoch and Thomas Nagel. The research findings unveil that the interplay between cognition and emotion, as evidenced by experimental data, poses a formidable challenge to the traditional understanding of impartiality and value independence. The article's initial section delves into the ontological nature of moral judgments, followed by an exploration of the cognitive assumptions shaping Nagel and Enoch's conceptualizations of objectivity. The final section elucidates the cognitive-emotional interdependence that disrupts the conditions of impartiality and value independence, conventionally posited as prerequisites for objectivity.
Keywords
Objectivity
moral realism
cognitivism
moral truth
impartiality
emotion.
References
- Anderson, M. L. (2003). Embodied Cognition: A Field Guide. Artificial Intelligence, 149(1), 91–130.
- Ayer, A. J. (1946). A Critique of Ethics. In Language, Truth and Logic (pp. 102–114). Gollanz Press.
- Blackburn, S. (1984). Spreading the Word. Clarendon Press.
- Boden, M. (2006). Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science. Oxford University Press.
- Colombetti, G. (2014). The feeling body : affective science meets the enactive mind.
- Damasio, A. (1994). Descartes’ error: emotion, reason, and the human brain. Grosset/Putnam.
- Damasio, A. R., Tranel, D., & Damasio, H. C. (1991). Somatic markers and the guidance of behaviour: theory and preliminary testing. In H. S. Levin, H. M. Eisenberg, & A. L. Benton (Eds.), Frontal Lobe Function and Dysfunction (pp. 217–229). Oxford University Press.
- Darwin, C. (1998). The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Oxford University Press.
- Ekman, P. (1977). Biological and cultural contributions to body and facial movement. In J. Blacking (Ed.), The anthropology of the body (pp. 39–84). Academic Press.
- Enoch, D. (2007). An Outline of an Argument for Robust Metanormative Realism. http://ssrn.com/abstract=2607202
- Enoch, D. (2010). The epistemological challenge to metanormative realism: How best to understand it, and how to cope with it. Philosophical Studies, 148(3), 413–438. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-009-9333-6
- Fodor, J. A. (1975). The Language of Thought. Harvard University Press.
- Gibbard, A. (1990). Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. A Theory of Normative Judgement. Clarendon Press.
- Goldie, P. (2000). The Emotions: A Philosophical Exploration. Oxford University Press.
- Griffiths, P. (1997). What emotions really are: The problem of psychological categories. University of Chicago Press.
- Hare, R. M. (1952). The Language of Morals. Clarendon Press.
- Hare, R. M. (1963). Freedom and Reason. Oxford University Press.
- Hume, D. (1739). A Treatise of Human Nature. John Noon.
- James, W. (1884). What is emotion? Mind, 9(1), 188–205.
- Kant, I. (1997). Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Mary J. Gregor, Ed.; Cambridge Edition). Cambridge University Press.
- Lange, C. (1885). The mechanism of the emotions. The Classical Psychologists, 672–684.
- Mackie, J. L. (1977). Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. Penguin.
- McCulloch, W. S., & Pitts, W. (1943). A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity. The Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics, 5(4), 115–133.
- Megill, J. (2014). Emotion, Cognition and Artificial Intelligence. Minds & Machines, 24(1), 189–199.
- Moore, G. E. (1903). Principia Ethica. Cambridge University Press.
- Nagel, T. (1970). The Possibility of Altruism . Princeton University Press.
- Nagel, T. (1986). The View From Nowhere. Oxford University Press.
- Nagel, T. (1997). The Last Word . Oxford University Press.
- Nagel, T. (2021). Moral Reality and Moral Progress. In M. Stepanians & M. Frauchiger (Eds.), Reason, Justification, and Contractualism: Themes from Scanlon (pp. 83–90). De Gruyter.
- Nussbaum, M. (2004). Emotions as judgements of value and importance. In R. Solomon (Ed.), Thinking about feeling: Contemporary philosophers on emotions (pp. 183–199). Oxford University Press.
- Prinz, J. (2004). Gut Reactions: a Perceptual Theory of Emotion. Oxford University Press.
- Prinz, J. J. (2004). Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of the Emotions. Oxford University Press.
- Putnam, H. (1981). Reason, Truth and History. Cambridge University Press .
- Putnam, H. (1990). Realism with a Human Face (J. Conant, Ed.). Harvard University Press.
- Putnam, H. (2002). The Collapse of the Fact/Value Distinction. Harvard University Press.
- Putnam, H. (2004). Ethics without Ontology. Harvard University Press.
- Robinson, J. (2004). Emotion: Biological fact or social construction? In R. Solomon (Ed.), Thinking about feeling: Contemporary philosophers on emotions (pp. 28–43). Oxford University Press.
- Russell, B. (1935). Religion and Science. Oxford University Press .
- Schupp, H. T., Stockburger, J., Codispoti, M., Hamm, A., Junghöfer, M., & Weike, A. I. (2007). Selective visual attention to emotion. The Journal of Neuroscience, 27(5), 1082–1089.
- Shapiro, L. (2007). The Embodied Cognition Research Programme. Philosophy Compass, 2(1), 338–346.
- Solomon, R. (1977). The logic of emotion. Noûs, 11, 41–49.
- Stevenson, C. L. (1944). Ethics and Language. Yale University Press.
- Thompson, E. (2007). Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology and The Sciences of Mind. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
- Turing, A. (1936). On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem. Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, 42(1), 230–265.
- Wheeler, M. (2005). Reconstructing the Cognitive World: The Next Step. . The MIT Press.
- Yıldız, N. (2018). Nietzsche’de Arı Öznenin Eleştirisi. Kilikya Felsefe Dergisi. Kilikya Felsefe Dergisi, 1, 90–103.