Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T13:19:32.521Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cautiously optimistic rationalism may not be cautious enough

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 September 2019

Justin F. Landy Open the ORCID record for Justin F. Landy [Opens in a new window]
Justin F. Landy*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA 17604. jlandy@fandm.edujustinflandy.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

May expresses optimism about the source, content, and consequences of moral judgments. However, even if we are optimistic about their source (i.e., reasoning), some pessimism is warranted about their content, and therefore their consequences. Good reasoners can attain moral knowledge, but evidence suggests that most people are not good reasoners, which implies that most people do not attain moral knowledge.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 42 , 2019 , e159
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Campitelli, G. & Gerrans, P. (2014) Does the cognitive reflection test measure cognitive reflection? A mathematical modeling approach. Memory and Cognition 42:434–47.Google Scholar
Frederick, S. (2005) Cognitive reflection and decision making. Journal of Economic Perspectives 19:25–42.Google Scholar
Haidt, J. (2001) The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review 108:814–34.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D. (2011) Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Kokis, J. V., Macpherson, R., Toplak, M. E., West, R. F. & Stanovich, K. E. (2002) Heuristic and analytic processing: Age trends and associations with cognitive ability and cognitive styles. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 83:26–52.Google Scholar
Landy, J. F. (2016) Representations of moral violations: Category members and associated features. Judgment and Decision Making 11(5): 496–508.Google Scholar
Landy, J. F. & Bartels, D. M. (2018) An empirically-derived taxonomy of moral concepts. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Genera 147:1148–61.Google Scholar
Landy, J. F. & Goodwin, G. P. (2015) Does incidental disgust amplify moral judgment? A meta-analytic review of experimental evidence. Perspectives on Psychological Science 10(4):518–36.Google Scholar
Landy, J. F. & Royzman, E. B. (2018) The moral myopia model: Why and how reasoning matters in moral judgment. In: The new reflectionism in cognitive psychology: Why reason matters, ed. Pennycook, G., pp. 70–92. Psychology.Google Scholar
Mackie, J. L. (1977) Ethics: Inventing right and wrong. Penguin.Google Scholar
May, J. (2018) Regard for reason in the moral mind. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pennycook, G., Cheyne, J. A., Koehler, D. J. & Fugelsang, J. A. (2016) Is the cognitive reflection test a measure of both reflection and intuition? Behavior Research Methods 48:341–48.Google Scholar
Pennycook, G. & Ross, R. M. (2016) Commentary: Cognitive reflection vs. calculation in decision making. Frontiers in Psychology 7:9.Google Scholar
Royzman, E., Atanasov, P., Landy, J. F., Parks, A. & Gepty, A. (2014a) CAD or MAD? Anger (not disgust) as the predominant response to pathogen-free violations of the divinity code. Emotion 14:892–907.Google Scholar
Royzman, E. B., Landy, J. F. & Goodwin, G. P. (2014b) Are good reasoners more incest-friendly? Trait cognitive reflection predicts selective moralization in a sample of American adults. Judgment and Decision Making 9(3):176–90.Google Scholar
Royzman, E. B., Landy, J. F. & Leeman, R. F. (2015b) Are thoughtful people more utilitarian? CRT as a unique predictor of moral minimalism in the dilemmatic context. Cognitive Science 39(2):325–52.Google Scholar
Schnall, S., Haidt, J., Clore, G. L. & Jordan, A. H. (2008) Disgust as embodied moral judgment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 34(8):1096–09.Google Scholar
Toplak, M. E., West, R. F. & Stanovich, K. E. (2011) The Cognitive Reflection Test as a predictor of performance on heuristics-and-biases tasks. Memory and Cognition 39:1275–89.Google Scholar