Details

Subject(s)

• Ethics [Browse]

Summary note

"Marc Hauser argues that humans have evolved a universal moral instinct, unconsciously propelling us to deliver judgments of right and wrong independent of gender, education, and religion. Experience tunes up our moral actions, guiding what we do as opposed to how we deliver our moral verdicts." "For hundreds of years, scholars have argued that moral judgments arise from rational and voluntary deliberations about what ought to be. The common belief today is that we reach moral decisions by consciously reasoning from principled explanations of what society determines is right or wrong. This perspective has generated the further belief that our moral psychology is founded entirely on experience and education, developing slowly and subject to considerable variation across cultures. In his book, Hauser shows that this dominant view is illusory." "Combining his own research with findings in cognitive psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, economics, and anthropology, he examines the implications of his theory for issues of bioethics, religion, law, and our everyday lives."--BOOK JACKET.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references (p. [445]-474) and index.

Contents

• Prologue : righteous voices
• 1. What's wrong?
• 2. Justice for all
• 3. Grammars of violence
• 4. The moral organ
• 5. Permissible instincts
• 6. Roots of right
• 7. First principles
• Epilogue : the right impulse.

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ISBN

0060780703

LCCN

2006041324

International Article Number

• 9780060780708

RCP

C - S

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