What Cognitive Science Tells Us About Ethics and The Teaching of Ethics

A relatively new and exciting area of collaboration has begun between philosophy of mind and ethics. This paper attempts to explore aspects of this collaboration and how they bear upon traditional ethics. It is the author's contention that much of Western moral philosophy has been guided by lar...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business ethics
Main Author: Anderson, James 1973- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 1997
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 1997, Volume: 16, Issue: 3, Pages: 279-291
Further subjects:B Cognitive Science
B Moral Philosophy
B Cognitive Psychology
B Empirical Research
B Economic Growth
Online Access: Volltext (JSTOR)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:A relatively new and exciting area of collaboration has begun between philosophy of mind and ethics. This paper attempts to explore aspects of this collaboration and how they bear upon traditional ethics. It is the author's contention that much of Western moral philosophy has been guided by largely unrecognized assumptions regarding reason, knowledge and conceptualization, and that when examined against empirical research in cognitive science, these assumptions turn out to be false -- or at the very least, unrealistic for creatures with our cognitive structures. The fundamental tension between the Western idea of morality (as basically rule-following) and the way in which people actually confront and experience moral dilemmas is a result of our failure to take the insights of cognitive psychology seriously. This failure has had a dramatic impact on not only how we teach ethics, but how we attempt to live out lives.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1023/A:1017995512747