%0 Journal Article
%T Moral Judgment, Sensitivity To Reasons, and the Multi-system View
%A Francesco Orsi
%J The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication
%D 2012
%I New Prairie Press
%X In this paper I attempt a critical examination of the multi-system or dual-process view of moral judgment. This view aims to provide a psychological explanation of moral sensitivity, and in particular an explanation of conflicting moral sensitivities in dilemma cases such as the crying baby scenario. I argue that proponents of the multi-system view owe us a satisfactory account of the mechanisms underlying ¡°consequentialist¡± responses to such scenarios. For one thing, the ¡°cognitive¡± processes involved in consequentialist reasoning only seem to play a subserving role with respect to the final judgment (providing non-moral inputs to judgment, or exerting additional strength to override the immediate ¡°deontological¡± response). In this sense, Greene and colleagues fail to identify a peculiar system of moral judgment specularly opposed to the affective ¡°deontological¡± one. For another, Greene and colleagues¡¯ work on the emotion-cognition dichotomy and the distinction between alarm-bell and currency emotions, though promising, still falls short of providing an adequate and consistent picture of the psychological mechanisms underlying ¡°cognitive¡± evaluations and verdicts in dilemma scenarios. It is suggested that alongside further experimental work, proponents of this view should pay more attention to the conceptual underpinnings of their distinctions.
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.4148/biyclc.v7i0.1778