The genealogy of the moral modules

Date

2003-05-01

Author

Bolender, J

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This paper defends a cognitive theory of those emotional reactions which motivate and constrain moral judgment. On this theory, moral emotions result from mental faculties specialized for automatically producing feelings of approval or disapproval in response to mental representations of various social situations and actions. These faculties are modules in Fodor's sense, since they are informationally encapsulated, specialized, and contain innate information about social situations. The paper also tries to shed light on which moral modules there are, which of these modules we share with non-human primates, and on the (pre-) history and development of this modular system from pre- humans through gatherer-hunters and on to modern (i.e. arablist) humans. The theory is not, however, meant to explain all moral reasoning. It is plausible that a non-modular intelligence at least sometimes play a role in conscious moral thought. However, even non-modular moral reasoning is initiated and constrained by moral emotions having modular sources.

Subject Keywords

Philosophy, Artificial Intelligence

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/63851

Journal

MINDS AND MACHINES

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1022902510039

Collections

Department of Philosophy, Article

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Citation Formats

J. Bolender, “The genealogy of the moral modules,” MINDS AND MACHINES, pp. 233–255, 2003, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/63851.