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4 Social Intuitionists Answer Six Questions about Moral
Psychology
Jonathan Haidt and Fredrik Bjorklund
Here are two of the biggest questions in moral psychology: (1) Where do
moral beliefs and e from? (2) How does moral judgment
work? All other questions are easy, or at least easier, once you have clear
answers to these two questions.
Here are our answers: (1) Moral beliefs and e from a
small set of intuitions that evolution has prepared the human mind to
develop; these intuitions then enable and constrain the social construc-
tion of virtues and values, and (2) moral judgment is a product of quick
and automatic intuitions that then give rise to slow, conscious moral rea-
soning. Our approach is therefore some kind of intuitionism. However,
there is more: moral reasoning done by an individual is usually devoted
to finding reasons to support the individual’s intuitions, but moral reasons
passed between people have a causal force. Moral discussion is a kind of
distributed reasoning, and moral claims and justifications have important
effects on individuals and societies. We believe that moral judgment is best
understood as a social process, not as a private act of cognition. We there-
fore call our model the social intuitionist model (SIM). Please don’t forget
the social part of the model, or you will think that we think that moral-
ity is just blind instinct, no smarter than lust. You will accuse us of denying
any causal role for moral reasoning or for culture, and you will feel that
our theory is a threat to human dignity, to the possibility of moral change,
or to the notion that philosophers have any useful role to play in our moral
lives (see the debate between Saltzstein & Kasachkoff, 2004, vs. Haidt,
2004). Unfortunately, if our theory is correct, once you get angry at us, we
will no longer be able to persuade you with the many good reasons we are
planning on giving you below. So please, don’t