U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 1 Models of Moral Cognition 2 Jeffrey White 3 Abstract This paper is about modeling morality, with a proposal as to the best 4 way to do it. There is the small problem, however, in continuing disagreements 5 over what morality actually is, and so what is worth modeling. This paper resolves 6 this problem around an understanding of the purpose of a moral model, and from 7 this purpose approaches the best way to model morality. 8 9 1 Introduction 10 11 12 The process here analyzed is not a dream, a fancy floating in the air; it is perfectly real, 13 and by no means infrequent. 14 -Schopenhauer1 15 A model is a representation of salient aspects of a system that, when rendered 16 together, articulate an essential function in a more efficient way than the original, a 17 replica or a duplicate. So, models are created for reasons other than for the creation 18 of one of these other things. Some models are explanations. For example, a model 19 of disease represents how pathology progresses. Some models are made to help 20 realize an original. For example, models of buildings inform architects and 21 engineers how to make original buildings which, once constructed, can serve in the 22 creation of duplicates or replicas. Models of this sort are especially important 23 when new answers are necessary, novel creations in response to new problems and 24 the questions that these raise. This paper is interested in models that do this sort of J. White (&) KAIST, Daejeon, South Korea e-mail: jeffreywhitephd@gmail.com 1 [1], p. 170. Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 1/28 L. Magnani (ed.), Model-Based Reasoning in Science and Technology, Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics 8, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-37428-9_20,  Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013 1 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 25 work, but rather than help in building better houses, the models that we are after 26 should help us to become better people. Rather than model new places to stay, new 27 futures to grow into, ourselves included. 28 Two general forms of moral model are prevalent, and both seem to aid moral 29 development. The traditional form is one of narrative and ethical theory expressing 30 principles affirmed by intuition and enculturation through example, demonstration, 31 and argument, and the other, more recently popular form is that of mechanistic and 32 information processing models of specific subroutines and circuits within the 33 brain, within the organism, or within the extant ecosystem, all working together to 34 tell the story of morality. Which mode of representation is best? 35 Twenty years ago, anticipating the impact of the cognitive sciences on moral 36 philosophy, Stephen Stich asked a similar question, and pointed in the direction of 37 psychological representations. A quick review of his reasons for this will help to 38 provide some context for the rest of this paper, as well as set up some important 39 issues to be met with along the way, including the role of models in moral practice, 40 and potential for future research. 41 2 Looking for Mr. Goodmodule? 42 In a talk from 1989 published in 1993, Stephen Stich argued that a central project 43 in traditional moral philosophy had been chasing its tail, and issued a sort of 44 rallying call to future-minded moral philosophers around a forecast that ''the 45 beginnings of moral philosophy fall squarely within the domain of cognitive 46 science''2 [2]. Stich argued that moral philosophy had been searching after things 47 that ''do not exist,'' and he identified a set of ''Platonic assumptions'' responsible 48 for leading the inquiry astray. The first problem was that some philosophers had 49 ''presumed that the mental structures underlying moral judgments are rather like 50 definitions'' in that they ''specify individually necessary and jointly sufficient 51 conditions for the application of moral concepts.'' The second problem was the 52 claim to reliable intuitions about these definitions, with the ''central strategy in 53 testing a proposed definition'' being merely ''to compare what the definition says 54 to what we would say about a variety of actual and hypothetical cases.'' And, the 55 third assumption that Stich found active was mistaking the central task of moral 56 philosophy to be ''making explicit the necessary and sufficient conditions that, 57 presumably, we already tacitly know,'' (pp. 3–4) Thus, we see moral philosophy 58 setting out for itself both the terms of its own inquiry and the standards for their 59 evaluation. Self, chasing, tail.3 2 [2], p. 14. Noted pagination belongs to the author's copy, a copy of which is maintained by Joshua Knobe online at the address cited. 3 It is as I had read the other day, ''It is a familiar problem in recent philosophy that to the extent my experience of another person can be assimilated to ready-made experiential categories, I have 2 J. White Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 2/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 60 Rather, Stich saw the future of moral theory in psychological alternatives ''that 61 do not involve necessary and sufficient conditions.'' These aim to represent moral 62 concepts in forms that people already comfortably employ in directing and eval63 uating everyday morally insignificant action, like ''the knowledge structures that 64 guide our expectations in reading stories about restaurants and other common 65 social situations.''4 66 Stich found that these everyday frames, as well as other systems of represen67 tation under psychological consideration-''Mathematical knowledge, knowledge 68 of various sciences, and common sense knowledge in various domains'' (p. 13)- 69 are analogous to moral systems in a very important way, in that people 70 can offer a complex, subtle, and apparently systematic array of judgments about particular 71 cases, with little or no conscious access to the mechanisms or principles underlying these 72 judgments (pp. 13–14). 73 This fact sheds some light on the purpose of moral philosophy, as well as on the 74 structure of moral judgment. Moral judgment is the product of something deeper, 75 that informs consciousness. And, the best ways to represent morality are those 76 ways that best communicate the significance of these deeper things. Stich 77 approached these issues through his primary vocation, as an ethics teacher. Given 78 the purpose to effectively communicate moral concepts, truths, so that students can 79 assess, assimilate, and critically evaluate morally salient situations, thereby 80 empowered through understanding to a lifetime of free philosophical self-deter81 mination, the best way to represent morality is easily determined. In the same ways 82 that people demonstrate, learn and understand morality, already, through direct 83 and indirect experience of the moral lives of self and others: 84 Exemplar models of conceptual representation, and more sophisticated variations on the 85 theme that invoke ''scripts'' or stories, also suggest an explanation for the fact that those 86 engaged in moral pedagogy generally prefer examples to explicit principles or definitions. 87 Myths, parables, fables, snippets of biography (real or fanciful)-these seem to be the 88 principal tools of a successful moral teacher. Perhaps this is because moral knowledge is 89 stored in the form of examples and stories. It may well be that moral doctrines cast in the 90 form of necessary and sufficient conditions are didactically ineffective because they are 91 presented in a form that the mind cannot readily use (p. 11). 92 An exemplar is a ''specific instance'' of some unique thing ''falling under a 93 concept.'' On the view that concepts are represented in the form of exemplars, 94 ''categorization'' of perceived objects 95 proceeds by activating the mental representations of one or more exemplars for the 96 concept at hand, and then assessing the similarity between the exemplars and the item to 97 be categorized (p. 10). (Footnote 3 continued) not really gotten beyond myself. Rather, in the experience of the apparent other, I have merely reconfirmed or reconnected with a prior sense of self-identity.'' [3], p. 119. 4 Today, this is deeply researched, with some technology employed in reading minds by reproducing field effects within areas of the brain matching those of the donor. Models of Moral Cognition 3 Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 3/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 98 In this way, exemplars serve as vehicles for moral knowledge by demonstrating 99 modes of being through which moral concepts are expressed. But more than that, 100 exemplars are a special kind of model, for they are something that one can 101 ''model'' himself after. One can direct one's life along similar paths as those 102 demonstrated by exemplars, mimicking routine actions in routine contexts, and 103 one can compare one's self against exemplified demonstrations as standards. In the 104 comparison, one feels what it is like to differ from these examples, feeling the 105 difference as the satisfaction or failure to meet exemplified standards. How well 106 exemplars work applied to novel situations, however, is another problem, and one 107 that we will come to as this paper closes. 108 The space of academic philosophy offers the leisurely reflection necessary for 109 ready analysis of possible situations and application of principle, where exemplars 110 are not such efficient vehicles of knowledge.5 This is clearly not the most efficient 111 way to model morality, however, unless expecting everyone with moral aspirations 112 to spend their days engaged in professional moral philosophy. Rather, exemplar 113 models work in everyday life because moral knowledge is about human lives, and 114 human life is more effectively represented in examples and demonstrations than 115 categories and principles. 116 Since the time of this writing, great progress has been made toward confirming 117 Stich's forecast that ''the beginnings of moral philosophy fall squarely within the 118 domain of cognitive science.'' By 2000, Nancy Eisenberg was able to report that 119 ''Philosophers' changing view of the role of emotion in morality is consistent with 120 the predominant view of emotion in psychology today'' in understanding that 121 ''higher-order emotions such as guilt and sympathy are believed to motivate moral 122 behavior and to play a role in its development and in moral character'' ([4], 123 p. 666). And, since 2000, the area between moral philosophy and the cognitive 124 sciences has exploded, with disciplines at its core notably absent from Stich's short 125 list of philosophy, anthropology, and cognitive psychology. To these must be 126 added a cluster of new fields falling directly under his forward gaze, experimental 127 philosophy, neurolaw, neuroethics, neurophenomenology, and social cognitive 128 neuroscience amongst them, all with a focus on correlating ''what it feels like'' 129 with neural activity understood either metabolically or computationally. All of this 130 confirming Stich's: 131 strong suspicion that progress in understanding how people represent and use moral 132 systems will not be made until scientists and scholars from these various disciplines begin 133 to address the problem collaboratively. Indeed, one of my goals in writing this chapter is 134 to convince at least some of my readers that it is time to launch such a collaborative effort 135 ([2], p. 14). 136 Here is a short list of traditional philosophical terms that are being naturalized 137 through ongoing interdisciplinary work around the issue of moral cognition: 5 And, as aging studies have shown, older people tend to rest on old ideas, with aging lazy philosophers, hashing out the fine points of established definitions is expected according to brain research. 4 J. White Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 4/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 138 • ''experience'' as ''conditions under which associations are formed between 139 novel stimuli and biologically innately significant events, typically innate trig140 gers,'' ([5], p. 656) 141 • ''intuition'' as product of one thread of the dual-processing portrait, ''associa142 tive'' and ''attuned to encoding and processing statistical regularities, frequen143 cies, and correlations in the environment,'' ([6], p. 990) 144 • ''moral intuition'' as ''fast, automatic, and (usually) affect-laden processes in 145 which an evaluative feeling of good-bad or like-dislike (about the actions or 146 character of a person) appears in consciousness without any awareness of having 147 gone through steps of search, weighing evidence, or inferring a conclusion,'' 148 ([7], p. 998) 149 – with the ''key functional difference'' between moral and other intuitions being 150 ''that moral intuitions appear to make a difference, directly, to how we act and 151 react,'' ([8], p. 7) 152 • ''moral emotion'' as an extension of root-level survival circuits distributed 153 throughout the body and realized in the brain as emotions that are at once 154 evaluating and motivational, [5] 155 – with Jonathan Haidt confining the moral to just those emotions that are 156 concerned with others rather than with one's own prudential self [9]. 157 • and most recently ''conscience,'' ''a neural process that generates emotional 158 intuitions combining somatic perception (the gut reaction) with cognitive 159 appraisal concerning a special subset of goals''([10], p. 156). 1601 When Stich was writing, without models of neural processing assembled from 162 basic neurological research, it had been easier to conceive of universally binding 163 rational principles than similarly effective sets of somato-affective markers and 164 their corresponding motivations. Traditionally, intuitionist, sentimentalist, or 165 emotivist accounts of moral cognition had been hamstrung by a limiting capacity 166 to draw their subjects in clear and distinct terms. Now, the ''new synthesis'' in 167 neuroethics promises to open new avenues to toleration, compassion, and mutual 168 understanding built on what is best understood as the ''shared body.'' 169 Not confined to individual human agency, neurological research has also 170 informed thinking on the issue of collective agents, where mirror systems and 171 empathy embodied in individual subjects help to explain inter-subjective associ172 ations whereby ''Some people may act ''as-if'' a certain belief was their own 173 without actually endorsing it themselves,'' with the result being the appearance of 174 unity, and so of collective agents as entities in their own right.6 Thusly, through 175 advances in functional imaging, a real-time picture of man's moral reality built of 176 affect, bottom-up, is being extended from neural substrate to intuition to institution 6 [11], p. 336. Such tendency to social coherence is also affirmed in the cognitive ''switch'' that turns individual fans into a seething mass, helping to explain the loss of self also experienced by persons caught up in the mass psychology of crowds. Models of Moral Cognition 5 Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 5/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 177 and social organization, deep in territory traditionally belonging to moral 178 philosophy. 179 In this spirit, Young and Saxe point out that individual differences in moral 180 judgment can be mapped onto regularly recurring patterns and intensities of 181 activity in different areas of the respective subjects' brains. These differences 182 correlate with education, upbringing, and routine attitude, and even characteristic 183 mood, with Saxe reminding us, for example, that ''people who are generally 184 disgusted make harsher moral judgments of unrelated incidents.'' Their approach 185 is to discover such patterns of activation common between individuals and groups, 186 thereby revealing the ''independent psychological components of moral judg187 ments'' and the neurological basis for ''apparently arbitrary ''cultural clusters'' of 188 moral value.'' Ultimately, Saxe, suggests that mapping neural differences between 189 parties to moral differences, ''may help us to understand and resolve moral 190 disagreements not only between individuals but also on a broader scale.'' She, as 191 Stich two decades prior, points to the future of moral inquiry in psychological 192 representations, forecasting that ''The next stage for research must therefore be to 193 understand the structures underlying these differences'' ([12], p. 324). 194 Pursuit of the mechanisms underlying moral judgments may reveal a universal 195 basis for moral judgment in these same mechanisms, with the hope that these 196 provide all that is necessary for moral guidance. Consider Jonathan Haidt's 197 assessment of the relative importance of intuition and moral reason in that effort: 198 In other words, evolution shaped human brains to have structures that enable us to 199 experience moral emotions, these emotional reactions provide the basis for intuitions 200 about right and wrong, and we (or, at least, many moral theorists) make up grand theories 201 afterward to justify our intuitions ([9], p. 68). 202 And, Cokely and Feltz second this sentiment, suggesting that not only are these 203 theories post hoc, but they may also be counterproductive: 204 In an uncertain and complex world such as ours, we should not expect or necessarily even 205 want to always be governed by processes that maintain logically coherent cognition ([13], 206 p. 358). 207 This is a long way from Stephen Stich rejecting necessary and sufficient 208 conditions as necessary and sufficient for moral theory. In the words of Darcia 209 Naevaez, ''the pendulum is swinging in the other direction and reasoning is often 210 considered unnecessary'' ([14], p. 164). 211 It may be that remaining rational is not always rational. And, understanding the 212 grounds for moral differences through somato-affective mechanisms is a long way 213 from the high point of the rationalist pendulum in the other direction. But does 214 distance equate with progress? Rather, it is my strong suspicion that progress on 215 the issue of moral representations cannot be made unless the highpoints of either 216 are reconciled with one another, seconded by an even stronger suspicion that we 217 have been in this situation, before. 6 J. White Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 6/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 218 As an example of a rationalist high point in moral theory, consider the 219 following conclusion from Hastings Rashdall on the plausibility of intuitionist 220 theories that morality is an emotion: 221 I have tried to suggest to you that they can be met in as purely a scientific and dispas222 sionate manner as that in which they are (at least sometimes) defended. But the scientific 223 spirit does not require us to blind ourselves to the practical consequences which hang 224 upon the solution to not a few scientific problems. And assuredly there is no scientific 225 problem upon which so much depends as upon the answer we give to the question whether 226 the distinction which we are accustomed to draw between right and wrong belongs to the 227 region of objective truth like the laws of mathematics and of physical science, or whether 228 it is based upon an actual emotional constitution of individual human beings, which may 229 once have possessed, and possibly may still possess, a certain survival-value in the 230 evolution of the species to which those individual belong. That emotionalist theory of 231 ethics however little intended to have that result by its supporters, is fatal to the deepest 232 spiritual convictions and to the highest spiritual aspirations of the human race ([15], 233 p. 199–200). 234 For Rashdall, the problem with intuitionism is not what it tells us about human 235 beings as a product of evolutionary forces beyond their control. Rather, morality is 236 about that part of human evolution that people do control. It sets out ideals, ''the 237 highest spiritual aspirations of the human race'' in certain terms. What is valuable 238 now is determined on the basis of these ideals, rather than how evolution has 239 shaped us to feel about it. Constructs of human reason, theories and hypotheses, 240 abductions, principles, expressions of ''objective truth'' like those of mathematical 241 and physical law, tell us what is valuable beyond the range of our evolved capacity 242 to feel about things. 243 This line of thought represents a strong counter to the nativist push to write reason 244 mostly out of the moral chain of causation. Intuitionists, on Rashdall's account, fail 245 to adequately weigh the consequences of the action. They account for the motiva246 tion, the antecedent. But, without objective means to weigh ends of action against 247 one another, whenmorally salient emotions conflict, it is impossible to decide on the 248 relevant course of action, ''for it is impossible to pronounce one motive higher than 249 another in the abstract, without reference to circumstances'' ([16], Chap. 4). And, 250 there is no guarantee, or at least not guarantee enough, that evolution has prepared us 251 for the circumstances that confront us at any given moment.7 7 Consider this adaptation of a famously mistaken line, from another famous and oft mistaken utilitarian, John Stuart Mill-The only way that we can know what is worth seeking or avoiding is because these are actively sought or avoided. On Mill's account, you would be better off Socrates suffering then follow the nose of evolution to the end of history. Because, without some power to determine the situation into which life places a human being, that human being remains a slave, thus failing to qualify for moral consideration, at all. Emotions remain stuck in the situation as it is, and insofar as humanity binds its sights to an emotional moral mooring, regardless if these have an evolutionary basis, it is as if mankind had never crawled from the primordial muck, leaving behind its correspondent morality, and adapted to the world as it should be. On the other hand, moral reason attaches to morally ideal situations and principles, because it aims at the best possible consequence regardless of how we feel about it. It is not what evolution has brought us to, but what we do with who we are, today, and tomorrow, these are the ethically Models of Moral Cognition 7 Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 7/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 252 In this light, consider Peter Singer's position, that the contribution to moral 253 philosophy from the cognitive sciences may be negative, confirming only those 254 aspects of morality that should be pared away in pursuit of adequate moral 255 theories. On Singer's assay, only moral skepticism is the alternative to ''the 256 ambitious task of separating those moral judgments that we owe to our evolu257 tionary and cultural history, from those that have a rational basis,'' with the full 258 intention of discarding all those without a rational basis ([17], p. 351). And, so far 259 as neuroethicists over-confidently swinging the theoretical pendulum are 260 concerned: 261 Advances in our understanding of ethics do not themselves directly imply any normative 262 conclusions, but they undermine some conceptions of doing ethics which themselves have 263 normative conclusions. Those conceptions of ethics tend to be too respectful of our 264 intuitions. Our better understanding of ethics gives us grounds for being less respectful of 265 them (p. 349). 266 It is not what evolution has brought us to, but what we do with who we are, 267 today, and tomorrow, these are the ethically relevant aspects of moral life worth 268 talking about. Any evolved, innate emotional dimensionality may describe what 269 we do on the basis of how it feels, but it does not tell us what should be done, 270 regardless, and it is unlikely that revealing the structures further underlying moral 271 reasoning is going to do so, either. Intuitions, insights there into and their theo272 retical offspring, are merely imperfect starting points to responsible moral agency, 273 and those who hold innate processes as upper and lower limit to the space of moral 274 theory are at best misinformed and at worst naive. 275 As expressions of our highest, most distinctly human capacities to conceive of 276 ourselves, our world, and the world that we leave behind after actions right or 277 wrong accumulated, these rationalist constructions pull us forward, rather than 278 push us along. They tell us why we live, not just why it feels good or bad when we 279 do it this way or another. And this is their purpose. They open up the space of goal280 oriented categories, allowing a currently bad feeling to be endured for a better one. 281 Without these goals, and especially without their development into philosophical 282 ideals, there is no possibility for the analysis of consequences. (Footnote 7 continued) relevant aspects of moral life worth talking about. What decides between the emotions is the purpose, the rationally constructed ideal end and object of the action and the emotion that wins is the one that brings about the best possible moral situation consonant with that action's purpose. Any evolved, innate emotional dimensionality may describe what we do on the basis of how it feels, but it does not tell us what should be done, regardless, and it is unlikely that revealing the structures further underlying moral reasoning is going to do so, either. 8 J. White Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 8/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 283 3 Two Moral Templates 284 All of the evidence points to the fact that ''Morality is a natural phenomenon. No 285 myths are required to explain its existence'' ([17], p. 337). And this clarity extends 286 to all levels of human conduct, with Jonathan Haidt asserting that ''Moral systems 287 are interlocking sets of values, practices, institutions, and evolved psychological 288 mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate selfishness and make social 289 life possible'' ([9], p. 70). 290 The issue is what we do with this understanding, not only to make social life 291 ''possible'' but to make it better. One way in which this already happens involves 292 tempering immediate desire for long-term cooperative goals. Likewise, Darcia 293 Narvaez warns against the reduction of moral motivation to intuition and emotion 294 due to the limits of ''gut-reaction'' assessments in both picking out and assigning 295 adequate significance to morally salient features of complex and changing situa296 tions. Narvaez points out that morality requires an individual ''to step away from 297 his own interests and from current norms to consider more inclusive and logically 298 just forms of cooperation'' ([14], p. 167) utilizing all forms of information 299 available in the construction of moral ideals and principles that help us to work 300 together toward more just arrangements. 301 The ability to create and to set out for one's self moral ideals and ideal situ302 ations, better situations, as well as to empathize with others, taking up their 303 situations as if one's own, ''in their shoes'' so to speak, is moral imagination. 304 Lorenzo Magnani and Emmanuel Bardone characterize moral imagination as 305 ''analogical and metaphorical reasoning'' that is ''very important'' to the practice 306 of ethics ''because of its capacity to ''re-conceptualize'' the particular situation at 307 hand,'' representing the situation as it should be or could have been [18]. Building 308 from work done by Magnani (2001), they suggest that analogical reasoning is a 309 type of model-based reasoning. That being so, moral imagination sets out situa310 tions to be sought and others to be avoided, based on information from one's own 311 and others felt, expressed, embodied situations [19]. 312 Building from work done by Magnani, (2007), Magnani and Bardone note 313 another way in which model based reasoning sheds light on moral cognition [20]. 314 Ends set out and achieved may be worked toward without something like what 315 Stich noted earlier in terms of other forms of knowledge, without ''conscious 316 access,'' with agents remaining able to execute sophisticated patterns of behavior, 317 along the ''how/that'' distinction in epistemology generally. Magnani and Bardone 318 review the notion of ''tacit templates'' to account for ''embodied, implicit patterns 319 of behavior'' ([18], p. 100) that are essentially context specific routine actions 320 either non-reflexively triggered through prior training to ''be selected from those 321 already stored in the mind–body system, as when a young boy notices his baby 322 sister crying and, without thinking, automatically tries to comfort the infant,'' or 323 ''created in order to achieve certain moral outcomes'' (authors' emphasis, p. 100). 324 This process of developing a model routine and internalizing it in self-direction, Models of Moral Cognition 9 Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 9/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 325 toward some further goal, is an illustration of the constructive role of what 326 Magnani has developed as ''moral mediators.'' 327 Specifically, the sort of model that we are after here is an example of a ''task328 transforming'' external representation. This kind of representation simplifies an 329 otherwise complex task by transforming ''difficult tasks into ones that can be done 330 by pattern matching,'' thereby making possible solutions to problems at hand 331 ''transparent,'' with the understanding that ''The more transparent the agent makes 332 the task, the easier it is to find the proper solution'' (p. 103). 333 In this section, we will look to two candidate sources for the sort of task334 transforming representations necessary. 335 First, let's look at Jonathan Haidt's ''social intuitionist model.'' Haidt defines 336 moral intuition as a capacity to realize moral truth without an exercise of reason, 337 but rather through motivating emotions, with the content of these intuitions 338 including emotional valences on the model of perception, with the shape of these 339 valences ultimately due to evolution, recognizing that ''it is very difficult to create 340 a fear of flowers, or even of such dangerous things as knives and fire, because 341 evolution did not 'prepare' our minds to learn such associations'' ([21], p. 58). 342 Supporting these evolved moral processes are moral modules, ''small sets'' of 343 which are productive of moral intuitions, and Haidt and Joseph posit the existence 344 of four fundamental sets of modules concerned with purity, reciprocity, hierarchy 345 and suffering. Paying special attention to that concerned with purity, Haidt and 346 Joseph paint a compelling portrait of the extension of moral principle from innate 347 neural structure, providing a universal basis for morality grounding the common 348 forms and functions of moral principles active in different cultures, regardless of 349 apparent differences: 350 Over time, this purity module and its affective output have been elaborated by many 351 cultures into sets of rules, sometimes quite elaborate, regulating a great many bodily 352 functions and practices, including diet and hygiene. Once norms were in place for such 353 practices, violations of those norms produced negative affective flashes, that is, moral 354 intuitions ([21], p. 60). 355 The social intuitionist model has ''four links'' ([22], p. 818). These proceed 356 stepwise as follows. First, the ''intuitive judgment link'' by way of which ''moral 357 judgments appear in consciousness automatically and effortlessly.'' Second, the 358 ''post hoc reasoning link'' ''in which a person searches for argument that will 359 support an already-made judgment.'' Third, the ''reasoned persuasion link'' in 360 which a person communicates his moral reasons to others, and may persuade 361 others by ''triggering new affectively valenced intuitions in the listener.'' Finally, 362 the ''social persuasion link'' is a passive mechanism potentiated by human sen363 sitivity to ''group norms'' such that ''the mere fact that friends, allies, and 364 acquaintances have made a moral judgment exerts a direct influence on others, 365 even if no reasoned persuasion is used'' most notably to agree with allies and 366 friends and to regard others vice versa, resulting in social cohesion through a 367 mechanism not unlike that detailed in Magnani, 2011 [23]. 10 J. White Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 10/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 368 The ''central claim'' of Haidt's nativist model is that ''moral judgment is caused 369 by quick moral intuitions and is followed (when needed) by slow, post facto moral 370 reasoning'' ([22], p. 817). Moral reasoning is defined narrowly as ''conscious 371 mental activity that consists of transforming given information about people in 372 order to reach a moral judgment.'' The social intuitionist model ''gives moral 373 reasoning a causal role in moral judgment but only when reasoning runs through 374 other people'' because ''reasoning is rarely used to question one's own attitudes or 375 beliefs'' ([22], p. 819). Haidt defends this hypothesis partly on the basis that 376 challenging comfortable prior evaluations, judgment, or beliefs is resisted due to 377 the fact that these re-evaluations threaten existing self-conceptions and world378 views according to which life is interpreted as meaningful and on the right track. 379 This leads reason to the exercise of self-defense, as if a ''lawyer'' rather than a 380 ''scientist,'' either with different object notions of truth. He also cites memory bias, 381 status-quo and self-interest to motivate a ''make-sense epistemology'' in which 382 ''the goal of thinking is not to reach the most accurate conclusion but to find the 383 first conclusion that hangs together well and that fits with one's important prior 384 beliefs'' ([22], p. 819). 385 Consistent with the ''social persuasion link,'' in which an exemplar, prototype, 386 or demonstration of a moral judgment may lead others to follow suit, Haidt and 387 Joseph assert the superiority of the virtue theoretic approach over other approaches 388 to moral development in that ''it sees morality as embodied in the very structure of 389 the self, not merely as one of the activities of the self,'' with virtues themselves 390 represented as ''social skills'' ''closely connected to the intuitive system,'' the 391 possession of which are evidenced by ''the proper automatic reactions to ethically 392 relevant events and states of affairs''8 ([21], p. 61). Moreover, as the criteria 393 according to which moral action and moral character are commonly evaluated are 394 virtues relative culture and practice, Haidt and Joseph suggest that we take 395 advantage of the body's ''preparedness'' to make some associations that expedite 396 learning about those things over others. 397 But, how to take advantage of this preparedness? Haidt and Joseph differentiate 398 their approach from traditional virtue ethics according to a relative de-emphasis of 399 cultural-environmental determinations of virtue, and increased emphasis on ''a 400 smaller number of phenomena that are located more in the organism than in the 401 environment,'' at once recognizing the central importance of each moral agent's 402 unique embodied situation in the instruction of moral virtue through the inculca403 tion of appropriate ''flashes'' of moral intuition: 404 These flashes are building blocks that make it easy for children to develop certain virtues 405 and virtue concepts. For example, when we try to teach our children compassion, we 406 commonly use stories about mean people who lack those virtues. While hearing such 407 stories children feel sympathy for the victim and condemnation for the perpetrator. Adults 408 cannot create these flashes out of thin air; they can only put children into situations in 409 which these flashes are likely to happen ([21], p. 63). 8 The inverse of which being Thagard's ''situational distortions.'' Models of Moral Cognition 11 Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 11/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 410 Ultimately, the placement into morally instructive situations, so that innately 411 present moral processes are attuned to salient moral dimensions otherwise lacking 412 in experience, is the limiting factor in the growth and development of moral 413 agency. Of course, Haidt's portrait recalls Rousseau's famous farmer's plot 414 demonstration in Emil, and as well suffers from a singular objection. It is not so 415 easy constructing these situations. 416 Furthermore, picture the eventuality of generation after generation putting 417 selves and children into situations that feel, from a common evolutionary basis, 418 like the right situations to be in. How is this different than the arbitrary hand of 419 nature circling the thread of human fate back on itself? From whence does the hero 420 arise who breaks this cycle and frees the future from the past? 421 It is the task of the exemplar to demonstrate this sort of information that is 422 impossible to represent otherwise. These sources of moral knowledge do produce 423 those flashes of understanding, while also contributing information about timing, 424 and fine motor action, as well as affective cues signaling appropriate motivations 425 and social cues. However, Socrates is more than two centuries dead. Christ, 426 Mohammed, the great leaders in Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gandhi, all dead and 427 lest we wait for exposure to a possible hero, it is up to us to stand in for absent 428 exemplar. Consider, again that history is a circlet, nose to tail. And, we are back at 429 the beginning, rehashing the same old controversies. 430 Should we wish to encourage the origination of such moral exemplars, 431 potentiated by moral models, to change the world, is this the most effective way to 432 do it? Where the task is moral self-regulation and philosophical self-determination, 433 a successful moral mediator in the form of a tacit template for moral becoming 434 must simplify this process while at once making solutions to everyday moral 435 problems transparent to the subject. Though such illustrations as Haidt's do render 436 solutions transparent, they do nothing to make them easier to reproduce. This 437 means that they are hard to use, represented in ways that people cannot readily 438 employ. If, indeed, facilitating moral agency is the goal of a moral model, then it is 439 difficult to see how nativist mechanisms can further this goal. 440 After all, it is impossible to expose a child to the all the necessary right things at 441 the right times, and for many, moral life is mostly a series of corrections on what 442 had been a childhood full of bad information. If we take this notion seriously, and 443 we should, then the direction that Haidt's model is taking us begins shed light on 444 the possible source of a standard for moral worth around the exercise of available 445 agency to re-direct and refine the given moral life.9 This is an expression of virtue, 446 if it is possible at all. 9 On Martin Heidegger's account, a person does not choose where and what and who he or she is. Rather, he is ''thrown'' into a situation, and is left to come to terms with it, to discover it and to understand it, and to courageously become what is necessary to take up his thrown condition, its history, and its people, and employ what potential he can to moving that situation forward, toward a morally ideal situation consonant with an essentially social yet individually embodied condition, all while confronted by its inevitable conclusion in death. A person is governed by moods, with mastery over moods necessary for moral freedom, especially mastery over the dread 12 J. White Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 12/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 447 If we allow that it is possible, then this, the ''honest toil'' of moral agency rests not 448 in availing to hardwired precepts, but rather in moral education, self-development 449 and self-regulation, with the leverage points to affect this process most often out450 side-in and top-down. That is, it typically requires leisure, self-reflection, and a good 451 bit of luck to borrow fromAristotle. Accordingly, one might object to this briefest of 452 presentations of Haidt's intuitionism on the grounds that self-reflection, the thinking 453 part, is not given due consideration, after all. 454 Further evidence against intuitionist accounts of morality might also be derived 455 from research proposing that a specific morally motivating emotion does not exist. 456 Batson, for example, locates what others consider moral motivation in selfish gain 457 through ''moral hypocrisy,'' the successful presentation ''as-if'' being moral 458 without motivation to become so [24]. However, this position stands against some 459 prima facie evidence to the contrary. If moral motivation is limited to selfishness, 460 how does a moral ideal present itself, at all, let alone universally? Is it that 461 becoming a moral exemplar is simply an ultimate realization of hypocrisy, pursued 462 for its presumed social and material benefit, universally realized and sought after? 463 Given the tragic ends having met many memorable moral exemplars across the 464 cultural-historical continuum, and the inspiring pro-social influence their examples 465 continue to have on people around the world, this seems unlikely. 466 A better answer to these questions may be found in the universal structure and 467 function of moral cognition involving the integration of intuitive and rational 468 mechanisms into the unified prospective concerns of a morally self-regulating 469 entity and fundamental unit of moral value, a structure understood traditionally as 470 conscience. 471 Space forbids adequate review of the philosophical tradition around conscience. 472 It had been a cornerstone in ethical theory until the late 20th century. Conscience 473 has all but disappeared from moral theory, except for medical ethics where the 474 freedoms of doctors and health care professionals to deliver or to restrict medical 475 attention, care, while constrained by law and business policies that may run 476 contrary to those freedoms, remains a contested issue. In this field, Donald 477 Sulmasy offers a ''contemporary'' view of conscience deserving brief review here. 478 Echoing Rashdall's assessment of the importance of our understanding of 479 morality, Sumasy holds that it is ''impossible to suggest anything more important 480 to the moral life than conscience.'' On Sulmasy's account, both individuals and 481 institutions are beholden to conscience, with conscience representing 482 the most fundamental of all moral duties-the duty to unite one's powers of reason, 483 emotion, and will into an integrated moral whole based upon ones most fundamental 484 moral principles and identity ([25], p. 138). (Footnote 9 continued) angst of death. Depending on how far from an ideal situation one is ''thrown,'' more or less work must be done to correct for poor moral upbringing during adulthood in striving toward that morally ideal situation on which his identity rests. See, Heidegger takes Aristotle's ''a friend is another me'' and makes it a fundamental part of the human condition, mitdasein. The other is not another me. The other is me. Models of Moral Cognition 13 Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 13/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 485 According to Sulmasy, conscience has two aspects, one ''turned toward its 486 origin'' and the other ''turned toward moral acts.'' It comes to our attention when 487 ''deliberating about particular cases.'' It ''establishes a felt need'' to act according 488 to ''fundamental moral commitment to act with understanding'' in a way that 489 maintains moral integrity, by resulting in a situation consistent with personal moral 490 precepts. The established feeling constitutes an evaluative ''meta-judgment'' over 491 the situations brought about through action, both prospective and retrospective, in 492 the form of guilt or shame associated with unsatisfactory ends, and with peaceful 493 wholeness and integrity the reward for having done the right thing, and having 494 brought about the right end. 495 Approaching the topic of conscience from the philosophy of psychology and 496 cognitive sciences, Thagard and Finn refer to conscience as ''the internal sense of 497 moral goodness or badness of one's own actual or imagined conduct,'' as a ''kind 498 of moral intuition, and as ''an indicator of the legitimacy of a moral judgment,'' 499 bridging innately grounded affect and ''internal and external standards'' while 500 informing us ''about what our moral goals are, as well as about good ways to meet 501 these goals'' ([10], pp 150, 168, 161, 161, and 163). This description explicitly 502 unifies ''top'' and ''bottom'' processes, with conscience working bottom up in 503 producing what Haidt's model accommodated as emotional valences, this one on 504 the order of rightness and wrongness. 505 Thagard's model rests in an understanding that ''emotions are both cognitive 506 appraisals and somatic perceptions, performed simultaneously by interacting brain 507 areas'' (p. 151). Cognitive appraisals are judgments on ''the extent to which 508 something aids or hinders our goals.'' Somatic perceptions are ''perceptions of 509 bodily states.'' Their combination results in a view of cognition that evaluates 510 possible goals in terms of anticipated body states.10 Conscience, expressed as guilt 511 and shame, thus expresses a situation arrived at in violation of some other 512 emotional valence,11 and these are not limited to social feelings. Rather, Thagard 513 recognizes the fact that moral and non-moral situations elicit activity in similar 514 regions of the brain, suggesting that there is ''nothing special about the brain 515 processes involved in moral intuition compared to emotional consciousness in 516 general.'' Conscience however, on Thagard and Finn's estimation, concerns moral 517 goals only, such as ''increase the well-being of people in general,'' ''act in accord 518 with abstract moral principles such as fairness and respect for autonomy,'' and 519 ''satisfy the expectations of social groups such as family and comply with religious 520 standards or other moral code'' (p. 153). This is of course to beg the question-Is it 521 conscience that delineates the moral from non-moral?-but we shall leave this 522 question behind. 523 In short, conscience, when judging an action right, is expressed as a positive 524 emotional valence associated with the satisfaction of the goal toward which that 10 Note the parallel with Sulmasy's two dimensional characterization. 11 We may also deduce that the voice of conscience is anticipated guilt or shame for some situation made possible by some entertained action. 14 J. White Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 14/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 525 action aims. Working against these goals results in negative emotions. Thus, 526 conscience represents a mechanism for social compliance, as well as motivations 527 to some other goal for which some positive valence is associated. 528 When it comes to moral self-regulation and instruction, rather than to 529 conscience, directly, Thagard points to his ''informed intuition'' model for moral 530 problem solving.12 This four-step model is decidedly top-down, proceeding thusly: 531 1. Set up the decision problem carefully. This requires identifying the goals to be 532 accomplished by your decision and specifying the broad range of possible 533 actions that might accomplish those goals. 534 2. Reflect on the importance of the different goals. Such reflection will be more 535 emotional and intuitive than just putting a numerical weight on them, but 536 should help you to be more aware of what you care about in the current decision 537 situation. Identify goals whose importance may be exaggerated because of 538 emotional distortions. 539 3. Examine beliefs about the extent to which various actions would facilitate the 540 different goals. Are these beliefs based on good evidence? If not, revise them. 541 4. Make your intuitive judgment about the best action to perform, monitoring your 542 emotional reaction to different options. Run your decision past other people to 543 see if it seems reasonable to them (p. 162). 5445 This model stands in contradiction to Haidt's hypothesis that ''reasoning is 546 rarely used to question one's own attitudes or beliefs.'' This is a decision proce547 dure seeking reflective equilibrium through a critical evaluation of how given 548 beliefs contribute to the realization of deliberate goals, calling for their revision on 549 this practical basis. Contrary to the intuitionist program, Thagard's takes care to 550 set out ideal situations and evaluate the feelings that arise in their respective 551 consideration, and this gives a critical stance from which to weigh the rationality 552 of given emotional valences. Thus, Thagard's decision procedure goes a long way 553 to answering objections to intuitionism leveled from the likes of Rashdall while 554 remaining sensitive to motivating emotions, and opening the decision process to 555 others who may be affected by actions in question. 556 But, is this the best way to represent morality in order to further the purpose of 557 moral models, facilitating moral becoming? It certainly stands as an improvement, 558 of sorts, over the virtue approach in that it can be applied in the consideration of 559 hypothetical situations under one's own self direction. 560 Thagard's decision procedure breaks free from affective limits, and right that it 561 should. Due attention must be given to what constitutes morality in addition to 562 affect, specifically sources of moral freedom rather than evolved pre-determina563 tion.13 The effective and affective detachment from immediate environmental 12 Which may in moral cases perhaps be called the ''educating your conscience'' model 13 After all, if we are not free to determine for ourselves what is right and wrong, and further to act toward one and away from the other, then any talk of morality rapidly reduces to pharmacology. Models of Moral Cognition 15 Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 15/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 564 pressures is a source of human freedom, with this capacity archetypically realized 565 as syntactical, symbolic, ''offline'' processing consistent with the perceptual basis 566 of symbols and linguistic representations. (c.f. [26]) In this dimension, Thagard's 567 approach to informing moral intuition is on point. However, it is difficult to 568 identify advantages of Thagard's over other heuristics in framing moral problems, 569 such as decision trees and reflective equilibrium approaches. 570 It is tedious, requires special time and attention to execute outside of the flow of 571 everyday life, and even if beneficial given leisure, it fails to give direction in how 572 to frame moral problems in a way to best inform moral intuitions. Rather, likely 573 due to the view that there is no special set of morally specific modules in the brain, 574 and no specifically moral processes in cognition, moral problems are approached 575 as any other. In every case, required processing is slow, and so not suitable to 576 directly inform some situations, but rather is best employed in reflection during 577 moments of relative leisure, to recall an opportunity dear to Socrates, in order to 578 rehearse and potentiate ''the proper automatic reactions to ethically relevant events 579 and states of affairs.''14 As a result, it ultimately fails to render the process of 580 becoming a moral person transparent. 581 However, it is clear how Thagard's serves as a compliment to Haidt's approach. 582 Ideally, then, a model intended for moral self-development and instruction would 583 marry the approaches of Thagard and Haidt, while taking advantage of embodied 584 moral processing in a way that facilitates moral becoming through making the 585 process of self-transformation, itself, transparent. 586 4 The Worm and the Mollusc 587 588 589 Although science likes to separate component processes for closer analysis, sometimes this 590 gives the wrong impression-as if one can truly separate the person from the situation, 591 reason from emotion, or intuition from unconscious reason. 592 -Darcia Narvaez15 593 First, I think that we can begin to make sense of continuing disagreement over 594 the source and shape of morality through two observations and an image. 595 In my experience, people view cognition in ways that reflect their own 596 cognitive styles, and cognitive styles are forged by the specific character of, and 597 tempered by the breadth and depth of experience. Philosophers spend a lot of time 598 thinking, while others may spend relatively more of their time doing. As philos599 ophers are most often employed as educators, thus, we find people who spend their 14 In other words, moral autonomy is to be found in the application of reflective analysis and moral imagination towards the preparation of innate capacities to feel, judge, and act, i.e. in the practice of traditional, especially Socratic, ethics. 15 [27], p. 185. 16 J. White Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 16/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 600 time thinking concerned with communicating moral truths to others who more 601 likely spend their time doing. The more that we reflect on emotions, after all, the 602 sooner they are categorized, and it is easy enough to see how, at least in a man's 603 understanding, this pattern of action might coopt an otherwise elephantine 604 emotional life. But, there is no use in it if the elephant isn't frenzied and restless. 605 There is no sense asking ''What it feels like'' of an analytic moral philosopher, if 606 the philosopher has never felt it. And, if he has never felt it, then what he has left 607 are his categories and conditions, which is where, I think, we started off with Stich 608 in this paper's introduction. 609 I further suspect that some disagreement over the nature of morality is due to 610 the subtle abuse of the common conception that human neural processing is dual in 611 nature. Involving 612 two distinct systems through which human beings apprehend reality: System 1 is emo613 tional, affective, intuitive, spontaneous and evolutionary prior; System 2 is rational, 614 analytical, reflective and occurred later in our evolution ([28], p. 175). 615 Along with this distinction has arisen a torrent of inquiry into the neural 616 substrates of moral processing that has grown increasingly philosophically 617 sophisticated, and controversy has arisen as these inquiries are framed and results 618 interpreted providing physiological bases for phenomena which had been, tradi619 tionally, the domain of moral philosophers. As the theoretical reach of neurology 620 into traditional moral philosophy has deepened, conflict has arisen between 621 theorists who take morality and moral agency as an essentially rational exercise in 622 self-determination, a ''System 2'' or ''top-level'' product, and those who take it as 623 a product of evolved processing extended from basic operations maintaining 624 physical integrity in the face of changing environmental pressures, as an essen625 tially affective, ''System 1,'' rather than rational activity. Champions of these 626 respective approaches have contrasted their positions in very strong terms, and this 627 has resulted in controversy. Controversy, moreover, that is not new, and perhaps 628 requires not repeating. 629 Finally, consider that people have tended to regard the ways in which humans 630 differ from other animals rather than their similarities as the locus of moral value, 631 just as they have for reason and consciousness, categorically defining other 632 animals exempt from moral consideration. It is my suspicion that this sort of 633 reasoning, so ''intuitive,'' has contributed to a misunderstanding of morality that 634 remains implicit in attributions of moral value today. There is more in common 635 between caterpillars and human beings than between human beings and most of 636 the rest of the materials in the universe. Is it possible that some of this common 637 structure is crucial to the moral structure of human beings, as well? 638 Consider the following story from the life of naturalist Jean Henri Fabre as 639 related by Robert Kirkman, about a type of social caterpillar called a ''pine pro640 cessionary.'' These caterpillars ''venture from the shelter of the nest'' at night, in 641 single file lined up without gaps, with ''each caterpillar adding a strand of silk to 642 the trail laid down by the leader.'' One day, Fabre looped this thread back on itself. 643 And, as Kirkman quotes, Models of Moral Cognition 17 Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 17/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 644 The unbroken chain eliminates the leader with his change of direction; and all follow 645 mechanically, as faithful to their circle as are the hands of a watch. The headless file has 646 no liberty left, no will; it has become mere clockwork ([29], p. 27). 647 They followed in circles for a week. Such life, for a human being, may not seem 648 worth living. There must be more than that, and it is to the difference between 649 human and caterpillar that people have tended to look, with the implication that 650 morality is not on the model of a caterpillar. 651 But, why? 652 Who can say that they have not been in the position of those caterpillars, 653 perhaps once, following friends, associates, lovers on courses that only left them 654 spent, lost, hungry and a week behind? 655 Consider Haidt's portrayal of the embodied condition as a small stick rider atop 656 a massive elephant, ostensibly the driver but vastly overpowered and at the whim 657 of the beast [30]. This illustration represents a correction on the presumption that 658 people are essentially rational agents, and it does something more. It advises how 659 to most effectively direct one's emotionally grounded life. The trick in directing 660 one's life is to get the rider and the elephant working together. 661 This model has obvious advantages over, say, dualist models. For instance, 662 there is prima facie reason to take good care of the emotional vehicle that is the 663 body, where for the dualist the body may be more limitation than empowering 664 transport. And, it does capture a sense of what it feels like to be a human being in a 665 humorous way that is easy to accept and employ. However, it does not seem to 666 reflect Sulmasy's profile of a Janus-faced mechanism for moral meta-judgment. 667 And, as for our goal of best representing morality for moral development, what 668 Darcia Narvaez calls ''moral self-becoming,'' it is difficult to see how Haidt's 669 illustration can be of much use.16 670 Let's start out for a better representation by returning to the beginning of the 671 paper, to make something of Stich's use of Barsalou in positing more than one 672 mode of representation at work in moral cognition, with 673 the mental representation of ''goal derived'' categories, such as things not to eat on a 674 diet... may have a format that is quite different from the mental representation of apple, 675 fruit, or dog. 676 The implication is that a good model of morality may need to represent 677 morality in more than one way, corresponding with different mental capacities and 678 modes of operation. This characterization feeds Sulmasy's description of con679 science, as well, with moral goals associated with or derived from principled moral 680 conviction and the qualification of other representations falling under these goals 681 colored accordingly. Further, according to Sulmasy, ''conscientious'' persons may 682 change goals upon ''learning certain empirical facts,'' ([25], p. 144) thereby 16 And, besides, there is a troubling aspect to Haidt's image. This is that there is a man in the position of reason, and this reveals a tacit association between Haidt's conceptions of humanity and of reason that might be taken to locate moral value in reason. 18 J. White Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 18/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 683 educating conscience through a directed search for and exposure to such facts as 684 seen in Thagard's informed intuition model. 685 Haidt's stick-figure elephant rider also represents two modes of representation 686 at work. But, this picture does nothing to clarify the processes that tie these modes 687 together, not in a pro-moral, or in any other way unless one wishes to carry the 688 metaphor of stick rider further-''Be good to your elephant, and your elephant will 689 be good to you,'' and so on. 690 Consider, rather, moral cognition on the model of an emotional inchworm 691 ridden by an information processing bivalve. One, the inchworm, reaches one end 692 of itself forward to feel out possible new situations, while the other end remains 693 rooted in the original. Once felt, the bivalve can open to this information in order 694 to determine what being in that situation would confront it with. On this image, 695 there is no separate human rider struggling atop some furious beast. Rather, we 696 have a single organism of two processes, one reaching forward or back to possible 697 situations, and the other processing available information to compare with the still 698 retained original. The inchworm feels out new situations, while the mollusk comes 699 to terms with them. And the end selected is the one that feels best in the terms 700 reached. 701 This model of cognition represents the dual nature of cognition in a way that 702 these processes are active in the discovery of the world, in the generation of new 703 experience, and also opens avenues to discussion of virtues, such as courage, 704 versus vices such as recklessness, in a very clear manner. In terms so simple as to 705 invite skepticism, courage requires that one come to terms with the situation that 706 he seeks through action. Without this process, the agent is reckless, and ultimately 707 immoral. 708 Before detailing this image further, let's examine the model of moral cognition 709 from which it arises, the ACTWith model. 710 The ACTWith model was originally conceived of as a model of philosophical 711 conscience, informed by Ron Sun's CLARION model of human learning [31]. 712 ''ACTWith'' stands for ''As-if Coming-to-Terms-With,'' representing a processing 713 framework composed of a four-fold cycle that may be pictured as a sort of 714 intuition-reason pump on the model of the human heart, with the heart being 715 traditionally the embodied locus of conscience. The cycle proceeds as follows: 716 1) As-if (open) coming-to-terms-with (closed) 717 2) As-if (open) coming-to-terms-with (open) 718 3) As-if (closed) coming-to-terms-with (open) 719 4) As-if (closed) coming-to-terms-with (closed). 7201 Open processes gate information into a process, closed operations process that 722 information, with the open ''asif'' operations feeling a situation out, and the open 723 ''coming-to-terms-with'' operations defining the situation accordingly. So, for 724 instance, in the closed/closed mode, the agent may act on the basis of interred 725 information, returning to the open/closed mode, whereby the newly acquired 726 situation after action is first felt out, and so on through the cycle. Similar processing 727 occurs in active compassion and empathy. Feeling out another's situation is Models of Moral Cognition 19 Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 19/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 728 facilitated by affective and effective cues which provide comportment information 729 and permit their direct embodiment through mirroring of that embodied condition. 730 In ACTWith notation, during the o/c stage of processing the agent opens to the 731 situation. In the o/o, the agent feels as if in that situation while opening existing 732 terms of understanding to revision on the basis of this new information, and during 733 the third stage, c/o, the agent updates his existing understanding, not only feeling 734 as if in another situation but understanding this as fact. In this mode, an 735 emotionally laden conception of a candidate situation is generated, and this portrait 736 is compared with the original, with the felt difference between them constituting 737 motivation to seek or to avoid that candidate. During the c/c phase, the agent may 738 act toward that situation, or return to the process of farming for more and better 739 ones. 740 Different cognitive styles arise through the routine commitment of cognitive 741 resources to the different modes of information processing, with the habitual 742 embodiment of these modes in certain types of situations resulting in the devel743 opment of different personalities and prejudices. Allocation of resources may be 744 conceived of in terms of clock cycles, electrochemical potentials, or simply as time 745 spent engaged in a certain mode of processing. For example, as the relative 746 evaluation of other situations equally means one's own or another's, an agent may 747 be habitually open to his own possible situations (o/o) while remaining indifferent 748 to those of others (c/c). Regarding feeling out another's situation (o/c–o/o), if one's 749 moral cognitive routine commits ample resources to identifying, recognizing, and 750 personally realizing signs of affective and effective states, then this contributes to a 751 certain cognitive style, including the projection of moral archetypes and the 752 emergence of moral exemplars. In particular, the habitual exercise of the o/c/o/o 753 modes in morally significant situations potentiates exemplary kindness as well as 754 wisdom, due to the fact that experiential resources are rapidly expanded, and bases 755 for common understanding and terms for communication expanded, all contrib756 uting to a decidedly pro-social personality type. This cognitive style is 757 ''conscientiousness.'' 758 The ACTWith model makes easy sense of other basic moral attitudes, too. In 759 compliment to Stich's ''Platonic assumptions,'' consider the following ''Socratic 760 precepts'' that arise from normal ACTWith operation. 761 The first of these assumptions is ''Know nothing.'' Socrates was famous for 762 suggesting that, though confirmed the 'wisest man in Athens,' he knew nothing. 763 His method in discovery through discourse involved always beginning with the 764 situation as understood by his interlocutors, and proceeding from there towards an 765 adequate assay of the matter at hand. On the ACTWith model, this is represented 766 by the first steps. In meeting with others, Socrates opens to the situation, then 767 opens to the terms to which they have come in determining the situation, only 768 feeling out and assessing further possible situations after this preliminary stage. By 769 this precept, thus, one must adopt a situation as if one's own in order to begin to 770 know why it is or is not satisfactory, why movement from this position (literal and 771 figurative) is necessary, in order to lead from there to something better. Prior 772 experience is active beginning in the third stage if this Socratic method is modeled 20 J. White Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 20/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 773 after, but starting open to ''what it feels like'' to be in other situations, and 774 informing one's understanding on this basis without prejudice is key. Making this 775 movement habitual is the first step in becoming a conscientious moral agent. 776 A second Socratic precept is ''Never cross your daemon.'' Socrates was famous 777 for refusing to aid in the arrest and eventual execution of Leon of Salamis, and also 778 for saying that he was gifted with an innate sense of justice, a ''daemon'' that 779 forbid him from doing the wrong things. All that he had to do, he told us, was not 780 to cross his daemon in order to emerge the 'most just man in Athens.' This 781 function of conscience is represented in the ACTWith model as follows. As the 782 cycle of processing completes, with terms of understanding come to insofar as 783 resources had been dedicated to their assay during the first stages, the c/c stage 784 draws the agent in on itself in preparation for action. Here, the infamous ''voice of 785 conscience'' may arise, barring action and so barring passage to associated situ786 ations. Here, the last and the future situations are held together, at once, by either 787 end of the illustrative inchworm, at the moment that the inchworm may commit, 788 lifting its tail from its prior situation to pull itself forward into the next. Antic789 ipating that chosen end, updating information until the commitment to the new 790 situation is enacted, conscience reveals that progress to this new situation will 791 result in a loss of progress toward some internalized moral ideal self-representa792 tion. That is, one feels as if he will no longer be his own best example of life worth 793 living because the agency that results in said situation is contrary to the sense of 794 agency exemplified in one's ''highest spiritual aspirations,'' to become the best 795 person one can possibly become. In this final instant before action, with both 796 situations bridged and the embodiment of the new situation imminent, the agent is 797 confronted by what Kant would call ''self-repugnance'' or self-disgust at the self 798 that results from this situation. Thus, it is not the end, or the action itself, that are 799 rejected in the ''veto'' of conscience, but rather what is rejected is the self that one 800 will become through said action and at said end. This characterization captures the 801 way in which conscience associates with integrity, feeling of ''wholeness'' and 802 self-esteem, in natural, easy to employ terms. 803 The preceding Socratic precepts represent a traditional understanding of con804 science while presenting this understanding in a way that is both consistent with 805 what is understood about the neurology of moral cognition and that takes 806 advantage of what is known about these processes in order to facilitate the self807 direction of these processes towards a unifying purpose, moral self-development. 808 These emerge from normal exercise of the ACTWith model. The ACTWith model, 809 moreover, is able to accommodate different accounts of moral cognition, as well, 810 even those that seem contrary to the model itself. These other accounts of moral 811 cognition can be informatively mapped onto the ACTwith operations, showing that 812 the ACTWith model is more fundamental. 813 Consider the following passage from Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments 814 as he describes the process whereby he comes to understand the moral significance 815 of another's embodied condition. Standard ACTWith notation has been added: 816 By the imagination we place ourselves in his situation [O/C], we conceive 817 ourselves enduring all the same torments [O/O], we enter as it were into his body Models of Moral Cognition 21 Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 21/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 818 [O/O], and become in some measure the same person with him [O/O], and thence 819 form some idea of his sensations [C/O], and even feel something which, though 820 weaker in degree, is not altogether unlike them [C/O]. His agonies, when they are 821 thus brought home to ourselves [C/O], when we have thus adopted and made them 822 our own [C/C], begin at last to affect us, and we then tremble and shudder at the 823 thought of what he feels [O/C -[C/C, in reflection] ([32], Sect. 1.1.2). 824 Similarly, Thagard's guide for informed intuition can also be mapped onto the 825 ACTWith model. And, though Thagard's is not primarily a model of moral 826 cognition, in so far as it is applicable to moral direction it should proceed 827 according to the ACTWith logic if the ACTWith model is successful in articu828 lating a universal structure for moral information processing according to which 829 other approaches can be relatively evaluated and recommended. ACTWith 830 notation and brief interpretive comments are added, as follows: 831 1. Set up the decision problem carefully. [O/C]-feel out the space of possibility. 832 2. Reflect on the importance of the different goals. [O/O]-attune one's self to the 833 likely realization of different possibilities. 834 3. Examine beliefs about the extent to which various actions would facilitate the 835 different goals. [C/O]-refine preconceptions based on expected outcomes. 836 4. Make your intuitive judgment about the best action to perform, monitoring your 837 emotional reaction to different options. [C/C]-act towards a new situation, 838 then/or repeat the cycle. 83940 And, we can do the same thing with Haidt's four-step social intuitionist model, 841 too: 842 1. The ''intuitive judgment link'' by way of which ''moral judgments appear in 843 consciousness automatically and effortlessly'' is O/C wherein arise gut-reac844 tions to possible situations. 845 2. The ''post hoc reasoning link'' ''in which a person searches for argument that 846 will support an already-made judgment'' is C/O, as terms of understanding are 847 farmed for confirmation of the gut-reaction product of step 1. Note that Haidt 848 effectively skips the O/O step, wherein new terms of understanding are gen849 erated, bottom-up, so the C/O stage is rather anemic on Haidt's model, thereby 850 limiting moral development consistent with his presumption that reasons is not 851 part of the chain of moral causation. 852 3. The ''reasoned persuasion link'' in which a person communicates his moral 853 reasons to others, and may persuade others by ''triggering new affectively val854 enced intuitions in the listener'' is C/C, as the persons perform communicative 855 acts, effectively changing the social dimensions of the situation. Presumably, 856 then, the person will enter into a new cycle of processing from this altered 857 situation, until action toward the realization of the felt goal is potentiated. 858 4. Finally, the ''social persuasion link'' representing the ''direct influence on 859 others'' that morally salient action exerts, ''even if no reasoned persuasion is 860 used'' seems to be a complex of O/C (open to the demonstrated examples of 861 others), O/O (being directly influenced to follow or to reject those examples), 22 J. White Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 22/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 862 C/O (exemplars represent a mode of understanding, with this understanding 863 applied to like situations), and C/C (actively exemplifying virtue or vice as 864 information for others). 8656 It is not troubling that these processes are not replicas or duplicates of the 867 ACTWith model, as they each express different assays of moral cognition con868 sistent with the cognitive styles of their creators. It is merely a sign that the 869 ACTWith model is more fundamentally sound than these others in that the 870 ACTWith model had been designed in order to be able to accommodate these 871 variants, as well as more radical variants such as those demonstrated by psycho872 paths, both individual and institutional, as well as artificial moral agents, and 873 examples from traditional moral philosophy [33–37]. 874 Some comparisons are in order. There is nothing essentially moral about 875 Thagard's model for informed intuition. Neither is there anything essentially moral 876 about Haidt's ''nativist'' model. One is an extension of individual prudence 877 endorsed through friendly confirmation in the final step. The other is an extension 878 of primal mechanisms aiming at contextually various satisficing conditions, with 879 moral excellence arising through some unspecified mechanism (though perhaps in 880 the ACTWith spirit due to the projected emotional fit of the organism to some 881 projected ideal moral situation). On the other hand, the ACTWith model is 882 essentially a model of morality. On its account, cognition essentially sets out and 883 weighs potentially embodied situations, not simply one's own and not neglecting 884 that potentials can approach zero. This is all undertaken in energetic terms which, 885 due to common physiology and natural law, provide a universal basis for the 886 relative evaluation of embodied situations, and so provide a universal basis for the 887 moral judgment over any given situation and the actions, conventions, and insti888 tutions that bring it about. 889 Space forbids further details, but, very quickly, perhaps the greatest upshots to 890 this model are the following. 891 One, it encourages the development of moral exemplars, helping to draw 892 human moral development forward. And, it does this while making consistent 893 sense of ongoing research in moral cognition. For example, the ACTWith model 894 makes sense of recent research that persons who are generally or easily disgusted 895 exhibit harsher moral judgment than others less sensitive to disgust, and that these 896 results can be reproduced when the evaluative basis in mood is temporarily 897 induced through disgusting and irritating noises. 898 Two, the ACTWith model naturalizes intention in an intuitive and useful way. 899 With conscience understood as the felt comparison of relatively well-ordered 900 situations with the ideally ordered case understood as an ideal arrangement of 901 objects on minimal dimensions, a ''-science,'' and with the felt tension between 902 situations motivational, intention can be understood as ''in-tension.'' Given the 903 common energetic basis of the ongoing analysis of situations on the ACTWith 904 model, intension is understood as the internal, motivating and relatively evaluative 905 felt strain, or ''tension,'' between conscientiously compared situations, reference to 906 which expresses both the motivation to some end as well as the end, itself. This Models of Moral Cognition 23 Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 23/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 907 interpretation falls in well with everyday language. For example, one ''intends'' to 908 bring a situation about simply because it is a better situation to be in according to 909 the terms of evaluation brought to bear in the comparison, noting that these terms 910 need not be subject to conscious selection. 911 One may object that this makes no sense of intentions over individual objects. I 912 think that such a possible objection is mistaken for two reasons. One, there is no 913 compelling evidence that cognition attends to individual objects rather than pos914 sible effects that these objects may have on possible situations. One need only 915 consider how dramatically a situation can change when it includes a door key, or a 916 restroom, to see that, as individual objects in the placements and properties 917 change, so do the situations in which they take part. And, moreover confirmed in 918 intuition, the only sense in which these objects do take place, or not, is that in 919 which the situation as a whole is transformed by their presence or lack thereof. 920 Another upshot for the ACTWith model is that the ACTWith program natu921 ralizes freewill as the embodied metabolic potential to posit, alter, construct and to 922 otherwise act toward ends of one's own self-determination, not least through 923 attending to and altering the weights attached to salient terms brought to bear in 924 rational analysis. Most importantly, this process underwrites philosophical self925 determination, the particular capacity of directed thought to affect the sort of 926 person that one will become through action by inculcating automatic or practiced 927 reactions to specific opportunities when so presented. Ultimately, this capacity is 928 due to the fact that thinking about one situation rather than another, in one set of 929 terms rather than another, expends similar amounts of physiological potential, 930 leveling the decision space given relative lack of urgency. Though fundamental to 931 Thagard's informed intuition model, this aspect of moral agency is discounted on 932 Haidt's, but only in the ACTWith model is the metabolic basis for cognition as 933 well as bodily actions rendered in one coherent frame. 934 Finally, the ACTWith model helps to make sense of otherwise troubling con935 cepts from the philosophical tradition concerning moral self-development, 936 encouraging the aspiration to moral ideals rather than wrote internalization of 937 moral principle or affect, and this deserves the briefest of accounts. By the 938 ACTWith program, conscience signifies the enveloping framework of cognition, 939 guiding an agent from situation to situation. It lays out possible ends of action as 940 situations in which the agent innately seeks to retain integrity by maintaining 941 equilibrium between internal and external forces, and this embodied logic, along 942 with embodied limitations, allows for their comparison and relative evaluation, 943 with differences providing motivation to move toward some and away from others. 944 Fundamental terms for the relative evaluation of situations are derived from 945 metabolic, physiological constraints, and are thus essentially energetic rather than 946 material. Conscience so conceived is the felt comparison of situations in the 947 constant adjustment of any dynamic agent to its changing internal and external 948 environments, in the human instance via homeostatic regulation of embodied 949 processes extending through moral cognition, including the comparison of possible 950 situations hypothesized in terms with which the person already cognizes and acts 951 as made available through limiting experience, i.e. ''moral imagination.'' 24 J. White Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 24/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 952 As the constitution of these hypotheticals proceeds from a limited sphere of 953 individual experience, augmented by affective and effective mirroring as well as 954 taught ''top-down,'' there is great potential for the scope of conscience to expand 955 over the course of operation. As terms increase, given sufficient resources, the 956 agent may develop capacities to simultaneously evaluate greater numbers of 957 dimensions and to more readily identify morally salient dimensions. With the 958 space of action mapped through this operation properly understood as meta959 physical, rather than merely physical, conscience motivates the agent to seek 960 situations with minimal strain between one's own and others' current and expected 961 future situations, with the global minimum-informed as described, through 962 habitual conscientiousness-specified as the Kantian ''summum bonum'' [35]. 963 This inspirational quality is obvious from the ACTWith structure. According to 964 Kant, an agent would be merely ''a marionette or automaton'' without the tension 965 between the sensible and the ideal, with any sense of freedom a ''mere delusion,'' 966 freedom ''only in a comparative sense, since, although the proximate determining 967 causes are internal, yet the last and highest is found in a foreign land'' ([38], 968 p. 102). Substitute ''pine processionary'' for ''marionette'' and the relationship 969 becomes clearer. After all, should a marionette live, it is not a life worth living, 970 perhaps even less so than the caterpillar's and for similar reasons. The source of 971 the motivating moral tension ultimately drawing the moral agent on to the Kantian 972 ''kingdom of ends,'' aspiring to Kantian reverence and away from moral repug973 nance, is conscience as understood on the ACTWith model. 974 5 Conclusion 975 I want to close by reconsidering Rashdall's phrase, introduced earlier, that ''the 976 scientific spirit does not require us to blind ourselves to the practical consequences 977 which hang upon the solution to not a few scientific problems.'' 978 How we conceive of morality has practical consequences. These conceptions 979 leave morality more or less available to practice. So, conceptions that make 980 solutions to moral problems transparent are the best. 981 Perhaps the most important moral problem confronting every moral agent is 982 who he will become through a life of action, a good person or bad. The ACTWith 983 model helps to make solutions to this ongoing problem transparent. Moreover, 984 potentiating moral self-determination raises the bar of human leadership, and this 985 is promising for the future of human tolerance and liberty, qualities sadly failing to 986 tyranny in the current era. After all, who willingly serves a lesser man than 987 himself, to lesser ends than he is able, but a slave, or a worm, or a marionette, all 988 without moral significance? This answer to this question is also rendered trans989 parent on the ACTWith model. 990 ''Ultimately, a genuine leader is not a succor for consensus but a mold of 991 consensus'' [39]. Leaders do more than make and break laws. They exemplify 992 ways of life, ways which, due to the nature and namesake of their positions, others Models of Moral Cognition 25 Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 25/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 993 follow, a fact of the human condition to which Haidt gives due attention. Towards 994 these, and for example in ''conscientious objection'' radically different ends, the 995 ACTWith model facilitates life-long moral development in a practical, holistic 996 way, being an intuitive, quick and transparent heuristic, which, easily employed 997 routinely and habitually entrains the agent into a specifically moral virtue, con998 scientiousness. In short, where other models ask if an act is prudent, or safe, if it 999 feels good or even if it is popular, the ACTWith model of conscience asks of the 1000 proposed end of action, ''Is it right?'' 1001 For John Dewey, the capacity to imagine other situations, to manipulate those 1002 situations, and to relatively weigh them, as is required in assessing the conse1003 quences of actions, ''constitutes an extension of the environment to which we 1004 respond'' ([40], p. 387) Imagination confronts the thinker with possible situations, 1005 by placing the thinker in those situations, forcing the thinker to come to terms with 1006 those situations as if they were his own.17 This is because cognition is not separate 1007 from the body and from its situation. Rather, in Dewey's words, ''mind is a 1008 complex function of the doings and under goings of encultured, embodied, 1009 historically situated organisms, continuous with physical systems'' ([41], p. 10). 1010 This understanding, nearly a century old, is worthy of claiming today. And this 1011 reveals something about the tradition in moral philosophy and the future of moral 1012 theory. Though the cognitive sciences have contributed to our deepening under1013 standing of the wheels that turn within us, it has offered less in the way of self1014 regulatory powers over those same processes. Intuitions and their evolutionary 1015 origins do not directly show us how to succeed in becoming moral, to remain so, or 1016 to aspire to some higher level of moral virtue. Moreover, such a neurologically 1017 based understanding of morality is not easily applied in the evaluation and similar 1018 reform of institutions and collectives, themselves by some regarded as morally 1019 significant individuals in their own right. As well, neurological models are useful, 1020 but by no means prescriptive in considerations of the engineering design and moral 1021 standing of artificial moral agents, or any other morally significant entity, 1022 individual or collective, so far beyond study. The ACTWith model of moral 1023 cognition was developed to overcome these shortcomings. 1024 In the end, our deepening understanding of embodied moral mechanisms may 1025 not be the most important tool in our moral development. And this returns us to the 1026 inspiration that set us out on this journey, Stich's call to collaboration on the most 1027 important questions in moral life. With Stich, in the beginning of this paper, we 1028 found moral philosophy chasing its own tail, without the influence and information 1029 from other disciplines, especially psychology. Here, at the end of our discussion, 1030 do we not find the cognitive sciences chasing its own tail? After all, in testing for 1031 morally salient functionality specific to certain areas of anatomy, do the scientists 1032 not test from the same set of action potentials and expectations that guide their 17 This portrait is supported by evidence that similar pathways of neural processing ''are activated both during prospection and during hypothetical moral decision-making,'' ([40], p. 749) and that all cognition is essentially of the embodied condition. 26 J. White Layout: T1 Standard SC Book ID: 305843_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-642-37427-2 Chapter No.: 20 Date: 9-5-2013 Page: 26/28 U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F 1033 own subjective experience? They confirm, then, only themselves in what they 1034 study. Their work reflects their evaluations, and expectations, as these are all that 1035 they know to challenge. But, what of moral ideals? Where are these to be tested, 1036 weighed, measured? Is it not from philosophy, and not cognitive science, that any 1037 question as to the potential realization of this human body arises? And without this 1038 view to the human future, what is the value of anything, at all, but what it is rather 1039 than what it might become? 1040 With these questions in mind, let's close with some reflections on the future on 1041 moral philosophy from Young and Koenigs. Though they show no doubt that 1042 extra-rational processes play decisive roles in moral judgment, for better or for 1043 worse, given that ''A coarse summation of the clinical findings is that individuals 1044 who exhibit abnormal emotional processing also exhibit systematically abnormal 1045 moral judgment,'' these scientists note that, perhaps, the pendulum of progress into 1046 the question of moral representations has reached its zenith in the cognitive 1047 sciences. They tell us that ''Even though the acquisition or expression of moral 1048 knowledge may be a suitable subject of scientific inquiry, science cannot reveal 1049 what is morally right or morally wrong,'' and that the ''brain may thus constrain 1050 the moral mind, but how we decide to deal with such constraints may be best 1051 determined in philosophical debate.'' Finally, looking forward, they point back to 1052 moral philosophy, and back in the direction from which we have come. Their 1053 advice is to ''return to the likes of Kant, Hume and Mill or join the efforts of a new 1054 camp of scholars, empirical philosophers, who seek to marry descriptive and 1055 normative approaches to human moral psychology'' ([42], p. 77). Advice worth 1056 following. 1057 References 1058 1. Schopenhauer, A.: The Basis of Morality. (Translated with introduction and notes by 1059 A.B. Bullock.) Swan Sonnenschein & Co., London (1903) 1060 2. Stich, S.: Moral philosophy and moral representation. In: Hechter, M., Nadel, L., Michod, R. 1061 (eds.) The Origin of Values. Aldine de Gruyer, New York (1993). http://www.unc.edu/ 1062 *knobe/x-phi/stich.pdf 1063 3. Andersen, N.: Conscience, recognition, and the irreducibility of difference in Hegel's 1064 conception of spirit. Ideal. Stud. 35(2), 119–136 (2005) 1065 4. Eisenberg, N.: Emotion, regulation, and moral development. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 51, 1066 665–697 (2000). http://psych.colorado.edu/*tito/sp03/7536/eisenberg_2000.pdf 1067 5. 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