What makes us moral on the capacities and conditions for. Here is a simple way to draw the distinction between moral monism and moral pluralism. Contemporary work on moral motivation and the rationality of moral action has broadened its focus to include a wide array of related issues. Numerous and frequentlyupdated resource results are available from this search. This page contains a list of the best books on moral psychology. Moral psychology investigates human functioning in moral contexts. His project is to champion a humean moral psychology on which beliefs and desires play distinct and complementary roles in motivating action. This knowledge is constructive in mitigating harsh judgments about our pervasive human. Like foundationalist approaches to justification generally, humean psychology aims to counter the regressofjustification argument by positing a set of.
It is also a good book to bring graduate students and even scholars up to. Eventually, i wrote a textbook on the topic, moral psychology. Much of her work is centered at the junction of practical philosophy and practical psychology, examining how both disciplines can meaningfully improve lives. Moral psychology evidencebased methods for intergroup. Moral theorists after hume thus depicted his moral theory as the theory of utilitynamely, that morality involves assessing the pleasing and painful consequences of actions on the receiver. Rorty mit press, 1990 and varieties of moral personality. Beautifully written, haidts book shines a new and creative light on moral psychology and presents a provocative message.
See for example ongoing projects on deliberative democracy, which reflect this rationalist orientation. Jesse prinz has offered a natural kinds theory of emotions. When we encounter a stimulus that affects our wellbeing we experience a set of bodily changes that represent things like dangers, losses, and offenses. These nine original essays examine the moral and philosophical implications of developments in the science of ethics, the growing movement that seeks to use recent empirical findings to answer longstanding ethical questions. Humes moral philosophy and contemporary psychology. Indeed, many of the theories that we explore today were proposed first by. It explains how recent work in moral psychology has advanced this position. John bricke, professor of philosophy emeritus, university of kansas.
Gary ebbs gary ebbs is professor of philosophy at indiana university, bloomington. The journal of scottish philosophy jsp publishes innovative work by philosophers and historians of ideas on all aspects and every period of the scottish philosophical tradition philosophical psychology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, ethics and moral philosophy, political and social theory, from the late scholastics of the 15th century through the 18th. To explain an empathetic chimpanzees action, for example, luco recommends positing a desire to meet the needs of a conspecific, and a belief about the means necessary to meet those needs 140. A moral psychologist typically provides us with an analysis of such concepts as agency, action, character, selfhood and freedom, amongst others. Specters of the humean self by arroyo, christopher. In this paper, i argue that humean theories of moral motivation appear preferable to kantian approaches only if one assumes a broadly foundationalist conception of rational justification. David hume and friedrich nietzsche are both moral psychologists in this sense. Kantian and humean moral psychology define terms kantian moral psychology morale flows from the peoples conviction about the righteousness or worth of their actions mad bomber an accident kants project focuses on reason reason is widely found in all human beings only reason. Some of the main topics of the field are moral judgment. Humes moral philosophy and contemporary psychology demonstrates how humes moral philosophy comports with recent work from the empirical sciences and moral psychology.
New interpretations of historical figures have also contributed to conceptual advances in moral psychology, in a way unparalleled in any other. If moral pluralism is true, we will at times have to act on. If moral pluralism is true, we will at times have to act on moral decisions for which we can give no fully principled. Kantian and humean moral psychology by tanya mukorera on prezi. Moral motivation and the nature of moral properties. Thousands of products are available to collect from store or if your orders over. Gill offers an original account of humean moral pluralism.
Moral psychology has undergone a revolution since the late 1990s. She is currently working on a book manuscript on moral sentimentalism. Note this is not to decide what is right and wrong, but to understand the origins of why we have a moral sense in the first place and how people reason about moral issues. A contemporary introduction, she covers a wide range of topics, including moral motivation, virtue, wellbeing and responsibility, and she manages both to present competing views fairly and to take a stand on which views she favors. Moral motivation stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. The cambridge companion to hume edited by david fate norton october. Second, i will argue that these difficulties are founded upon kants conception of subjectivity as bifurcated between rational and sensible nature. Department of philosophy university of minnesota 831 heller hall, 271 19th ave. An examination of humes moral psychology 9780198250111. Moral pluralism is the view that there are different ultimate moral reasons for action, that those different reasons can sometimes come into conflict with each other, and that there exist no invariable ordering principles that tell us how to resolve such conflicts. Efforts to make moral psychology a thoroughly empirical discipline have divided philosophers along methodological fault lines, isolating discussions that will profit more. A contemporary introduction routledge contemporary. In addition to work on hume and other enlightenment figures, she has published articles and chapters in moral psychology, on such humean topics as pride, moral praise, hate, and resentment.
Hume anticipated some features of darwinian thinking about animal minds. Oclcs webjunction has pulled together information and resources to assist library staff as they consider how to handle. He is the author of a number of important books and. It shows how contemporary work in virtue ethics has much stronger similarities to the metaphysically thin conception of human nature that hume developed, rather than the. But at least since platos classic discussion in the second book of the. Moral psychology eventually came to refer more broadly to various topics at the intersection of ethics, psychology, and philosophy of mind. Ive also started to collaborate with psychologists on wellbeing in the workplace, wellbeing and personality psychology, wellbeing and genetics, epistemic virtue, and moral and epistemic agency.
Contemporary theories of humean inspiration develop a causalexplanatory model of action in terms of the joint operation of two distinct mental states. According to him, an emotional experience is a bodily change that indicates situations in our environment that should concern us. Valerie tiberius department of philosophy, university of. This book shows that the combination of these two views produces a more accurate account of our moral experiences than the monistic, rationalist, and nonnaturalist alternatives. He taught previously at the university of oxford, monash university, and was a member of the philosophy program at the research school of social sciences, australian national university. Humean externalism and the argument from depression. Humes main ethical writings are book 3 of his treatise of human nature, of morals which builds on book 2, of the passions, his enquiry. Because we have become increasingly aware of the extent of kants writings on ethics, these scholars have been able to cogently argue that kants. Humes moral philosophy and contemporary psychology 1st.
Moral psychology is the study of the human mind as it relates to morality and moral conduct. In recent decades the central questions of moral psychology have attracted renewed interest. The field used to be focused on moral reasoning, leading researcher to examine the conditions that foster better deliberation. All of the chapters provide valuable insight into the relevance of humes moral philosophy to. Humes moral philosophy and contemporary psychology is an exceptionally interesting and illuminating reflection on humes contributions to moral philosophy and in particular its relations, both methodological and doctrinal, to contemporary cognitive psychology. Oxford university press, 1977, that manage somehow to make important contributions at the cutting edge of moral philosophy even as they introduce.
Tiberiuss work has focused on ethics and moral psychology, with a special interest in applying humean principles to modern philosophical questions. Kantian and humean moral psychology define terms kantian moral psychology morale flows from the peoples conviction about the righteousness or worth of their actions mad bomber an accident kants project focuses on reason reason is. The humean approach to moral diversity journal of scottish. I consider this book a treasured contribution to moral psychology. Reliable information about the coronavirus covid19 is available from the world health organization current situation, international travel. Humes moral psychology chapter 5 the cambridge companion. The basic phenomenon of moral motivation might be given a more systematic depiction as follows, using p to stand for some person or individual and. Historically, the term moral psychology was used relatively narrowly to refer to the study of moral development. Mark collier, a humean approach to the boundaries of the. Humean theory of practical rationality oxford scholarship. The eight best books on moral psychology the daily idea.
A contemporary introduction presents research by philosophers and psychologists on these topics, and addresses the overarching question of how empirical research is or is not relevant to philosophical inquiry. This article presents a theory inspired by and rooted in the work of the scottish philosopher and historian david hume. Moral psychology is a field of study in both philosophy and psychology. It is this concept and terminology that inspired classic utilitarian philosophers, such as jeremy bentham 17481832.
The journal of scottish philosophy jsp publishes innovative work by philosophers and historians of ideas on all aspects and every period of the scottish philosophical tradition philosophical psychology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, ethics and moral philosophy, political and social theory, from the late scholastics of the 15th century through the 18th century enlightenment. The psychology of morality books exploring the origins of the human moral sense. Two foundational texts within moral psychology are identity, character, and morality. David hume 7 may 1711 26 april 25 august 1776 was a scottish philosopher, economist, historian and an important figure in the history of western philosophy and the scottish enlightenment. Hume is often grouped with john locke, george berkeley, and a handful of others as a british empiricist. Prinz is a distinguished professor of philosophy and director of the committee for interdisciplinary science studies at the graduate center of the city university of new york prinz works primarily in the philosophy of psychology and ethics and has authored several books and over 100 articles, addressing such topics as emotion, moral psychology, aesthetics and. New interpretations of historical figures have also contributed to conceptual advances in moral psychology, in a way unparalleled in any other area of philosophy. Generally regarded as one of the most important philosophers to write in english, david hume 17111776 was also well known in his own time as an historian and essayist. Moral psychology published on 01 jan 2007 by brill rodopi. Penguin books, 1977 and gilbert harmans the nature of morality oxford. Just to be clear, there is no single best book on moral psychology.
I will do is try to show that a humean metaethics can explain important moral phenomena. A master stylist in any genre, his major philosophical works a treatise of human nature 17391740, the enquiries concerning human understanding 1748 and concerning. In particular, hume believed that when the term understand is used properly, animals can understand many features of the world. This chapter concludes the discussion of book ii as the theoretical foundation for the treatise as a whole.
The best book for you will depend on your preferred learning style and the amount of time that you want to spend reading about moral psychology. Symbolic thought and the evolution of human morality. Humean account of the status and character of animals. Section 4 explores more general considerations about moral motivation and metaethics, while section 5 considers alleged implications for philosophical theories about moral motivation from recent work in empirical psychology. Many philosophers find the arguments in favor of externalism to be highly compelling.
It elucidates the historical origins of the humean pluralist position in the works of david hume, adam smith, and their eighteenthcentury contemporaries. Moral psychology, in psychology, study of the development of the moral sensei. An 800page scholarly overview is unlikely to be best for someone looking for a short beginnerfriendly introduction. Efforts to make moral psychology a thoroughly empirical discipline have divided philosophers along methodological fault lines, isolating discussions. In moral philosophy, fear of the socalled naturalistic fallacy kept moral philosophers. Why good people are divided by politics and religion by jonathan haidt, moral tribes. I will first discuss kants theory of virtue as it is presented in the above works and indicate how it leads to a reemergence of the humean self in kants moral philosophy. Jun 01, 2015 according to humean externalism, moral motivation is the product of ones moral desiresthe desire to be moral, perhaps 3which are distinct from or external to her motivationally inert moral judgments. David hume 17111776 is widely acknowledged as one of the most important philosophers in the english language, with his work continuing to exert major influence on philosophy today. In general, they have argued against a traditional reading of kant that accuses him of having an inadequate moral psychology. At the early level, that of preconventional moral reasoning, the.