Moral Heuristics: the History of Research
SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY
Keywords:
heuristics, moral heuristics, social heuristics, attribute substitution, consequen- tialism, moral intuitionAbstract
The paper presents an analytical review of main studies of moral heuristics. Studies of moral heuristics result from the expanding of the scope of the studies of heuristics (methods that give opportunity to make decisions with minimal cognitive efforts) to the domain of mo- rality. Accordingly moral heuristics are the methods that make moral decision-making easier. These methods mostly include the use of simple norms (“do not kill”, “do not steal”), the decision-making based on emotional reactions, the use of simple rules such us “imitate your peers or somebody authoritative”, “follow default behavior” etc. Although researchers agree that in everyday life people make moral decisions using heuristics, they have different opinions according to their effectiveness: some of them focus on fallibility of such decisions while others — on their correctness. In this connection the problem of the criterion of correctness of moral decision is quite urgent. The significance of the re- search of moral heuristics for moral philosophy, firstly, relates to the fact that such research can make a significant contribution to solving some of its key problems: to propose new arguments for discussion between deontological and consequential ethics; to clarify nature and status of moral intuition and the role of emotions in moral life of a person.
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