Along with questions of what is true and what is beautiful, questions of morality and the good life are some of the most pressing that human beings face. And since at least the time of Plato's interest in the beautiful, the true, and the good, philosophers have been endeavoring to understand what morality requires of us, how we know it, and the sense in which the good life for human beings is a life of morality.
Recent developments in the empirical study of the cognitive processes underlying moral judgment-in fields as diverse as cognitive science, developmental psychology, primatology, and evolutionary anthropology-are beginning to offer up their own responses to classical philosophical questions of morality. These studies are beginning to raise questions of their own, some of which have more than a merely academic interest-e.g., to what extent are there moral 'tribes' whose members view moral and political issues in a particular way, and what are the cognitive differences that underlie different moral tribes?
The aim of this course is to present students with an overview of the philosophical and empirical study of moral psychology. Readings will be drawn from a combination of classical philosophical texts, recent empirical essays, and book-length treatments of moral psychology published in the last ten years.
- Учитель: Preston John Stovall