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In his (controversial?) book The Moral Landscape (Free Press, 2010), Sam Harris argues that science can determine human values - science can do more than just tell how we are; it can, in principle, tell us how we ought to be. Although in his view moral relativism is simply false, he goes in great detail arguing with those who believe so. Like the psychologist Jonathan Haidt who does not go so far as to say that reasoning never produces moral judgments but argues that this happens far less often than people think. Haidt has put forward a very influential thesis about moral judgment in his article The Emotional Dog and Its rational Tail; here is the summary:

dog’s tale illusion

Our moral life is plagued by two illusions. The first illusion can be called the "wag-the- dog" illusion. We believe that our own moral judgment (the dog) is driven by our own moral reasoning (the tail). The second illusion can be called the "wag-the-other- dog’s tail" illusion. In a moral argument, we expect the successful rebuttal of our opponents’ arguments to change our opponents’ minds. Such a belief is analogous to believing that forcing a dog’s tail to wag by moving it with your hand should make the dog happy.

Jonathan Haidt: The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment, Psychol.Rev, 108(2001), 814-834.

plagued by two illusions

 2012-07-22 

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