Social Intuitionists Answer Six Questions About Morality

MORAL PSYCHOLOGY, W. Sinnott-Armstrong, ed., Oxford University Press, Forthcoming

38 Pages Posted: 24 Apr 2007

See all articles by Jonathan Haidt

Jonathan Haidt

New York University (NYU) - Leonard N. Stern School of Business

Fredrik Bjorklund

Lund University

Abstract

We review the state of the art in moral psychology to answer 6 questions: 1) Where do moral beliefs and motivations come from? 2) How does moral judgment work? 3) What is the evidence for the social intuitionist model? 4) What exactly are the moral intuitions? 5) How does morality develop? And 6) Why do people vary in their morality? We describe the intuitionist approach to moral psychology. The mind makes rapid affective evaluations of everything it encounters, and these evaluations (intuitions) shape and push subsequent moral reasoning. This approach to moral judgment has a variety of implications for moral philosophy and for the law in that it questions common assumptions about the reliability and causal efficacy of private, conscious reasoning.

Keywords: morality, moral judgment, moral intuition, evolution of morality

Suggested Citation

Haidt, Jonathan and Bjorklund, Fredrik, Social Intuitionists Answer Six Questions About Morality. MORAL PSYCHOLOGY, W. Sinnott-Armstrong, ed., Oxford University Press, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=855164

Jonathan Haidt (Contact Author)

New York University (NYU) - Leonard N. Stern School of Business ( email )

NYU-Stern School of Business
44 West 4th Street
New York, NY NY 10012
United States

Fredrik Bjorklund

Lund University ( email )

Box 117
Lund, SC Skane S221 00
Sweden

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