Are moral judgments unified?
Whenever psychologists, neuroscientists, or philosophers draw conclusions about moral judgments in general from a small selected sample, they assume that moral judgments are unified by some common and peculiar feature that enables generalizations and makes morality worthy of study as
a unified field. We assess this assumption by considering the six main candidates for a unifying feature: content, phenomenology, force, form, function, and brain mechanisms. We conclude that moral judgment is not unified on any of these levels and that moral science should adopt a more fine-grained
taxonomic approach that studies carefully defined groups of moral judgments.
Keywords: Moral Judgment; Moral Neuroscience; Moral Philosophy; Moral Psychology; Taxonomy; Unity
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: Philosophy Department, Duke University, 2: Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College,
Publication date: 04 July 2014
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