Greetings all, This coming Monday, Nov 10, 1.00-2.30 in the philosophy common room, Catriona Mackenzie, Macquarie University, will talk to us about ‘Emotions, Reflection and Moral Agency’
Abstract Recent work in social psychology and cognitive neuroscience has highlighted the role of emotions in moral judgment. Although I am sympathetic to the focus on emotions and the critique of overly rationalistic models of moral judgment, I want to take issue with several prevailing trends in the recent literature in moral psychology. First, I want to question the prevalent reductive conception of emotions as automatic affective processes and to argue that a cognitive appraisal approach yields a better understanding of the role of emotions in moral thinking. Second, moral reflection tends to be characterized in the literature as conscious, effortful, introspective reasoning about moral principles. Although such reasoning does (and should) play an important role in moral deliberation and reflection, I want to argue that moral reflection also involves the exercise of a complex set of emotional and imaginative skills and that it is a social process. Third, some of the recent empirical research draws conclusions from the analysis of participants’ one-off judgments or ‘intuitions’ elicited in response to abstract hypothetical moral dilemmas. However, since moral reflection is both temporally extended and focused on guiding action, it is questionable how much weight should be given to such intuitions for understanding the exercise of moral agency in real world, everyday situations. Dr. Kristie Miller Australian Research Council Post-doctoral Fellow School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry and The Centre for Time The University of Sydney Sydney, Australia Room 411, A18 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ph: (work) 02 9036 9663 Ph: (mobile) 0432 275 286 http://homepage.mac.com/centre.for.time/KristieMiller/Kristie/Home%20Page.html _______________________________________________ SydPhil mailing list [email protected] List Info: http://lists.arts.usyd.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/sydphil NEW LIST ARCHIVE: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
