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Philosophers use the phrase "moral intuition " to describe the appearance in consciousness of moral judgments or assessments without any awareness of having gone through a conscious reasoning process that produces this assessment. This paper investigates the neural substrates of moral intuition. We propose that moral intuitions are part of a larger set of social intuitions that guide us through complex, highly uncertain and rapidly changing social interactions. Such intuitions are shaped by learning. The neural substrates for moral intuition include fronto-insular, cingulate, and orbito-frontal cortices and associated subcortical structure such as the septum, basil ganglia and amygdala. Understanding the role of these structures undercuts many philosophical doctrines concerning the status of moral intuitions, but vindicates the claim that they can sometimes play a legitimate role in moral decision-making.

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In the Apology, Socrates notes that the goals of many of his fellow Athenians are mistaken: rather than pursuing “as much wealth, reputation, and honors as possible, ” they ought instead to pursue wisdom and virtue (Ap. 29d-30b). In the Crito, Socrates claims that considerations of justice override any competing considerations, and that his views about the priority of justice apply not only to people like him who have a deep commitment to justice, but to everyone, including, presumably, those who do not happen to share his ends (Cr. 48c-49a). But what is the basis for Socrates ’ views that his fellow Athenians ’ ends are mistaken? If Socrates ’ fellow Athenians do not care about wisdom and virtue, and if wisdom and virtue are not necessary for anything they do care about, then why should they pursue wisdom and virtue? These are ancient philosophical questions, and the likelihood for consensus on an answer to them seems remote. Currently, most philosophers who seek to answer such questions offer answers that are of one of two sorts: (1) subjectivist reductionist, according to which, either (the cognitivist version) fundamental normative claims about what S ought to do, or what sort of person S ought to be, are true in virtue of facts about the S’s (or the speaker’s) ultimate commitments or values, or (2) objectivist non-reductionist, according to which such claims are made true by the

ABSTRACT: Mirror neurons are brain systems found in monkeys and humans that respond similarly to actions and to the perception of actions of others. This paper explores the implications of mirror neurons for several important philosophical problems, including knowledge of other minds, the nature of empathy, and moral motivation. It argues that mirror neurons provide a more direct route to other minds, empathy, and moral motivation that complements the more familiar route based on conscious, verbal inference. To show how mirror neurons accomplish these functions, I apply a neurocomputational account of representation and inference.

SE Les critiques du libéralisme Autour du libéralisme de Rawls. La critique communautarienne: « Le libéralisme et les limites de la justice » de Michael Sandel

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Moral norms are the rules of morality, those that people actually follow, and those that we feel people ought to follow, even when they don’t. Historically, the social sciences have been primarily concerned with describing the many forms that moral norms take in various cultures, with the emerging implication that moral norms are mere arbitrary products of culture. Philosophers, on the other hand, have been more concerned with trying to understand the nature and source of rules that all cultures ought to follow, with relatively little regard for what people actually do. The tension between the two approaches has to do with whether there are any standards higher than the whims of culture in determining right and wrong. Typically, the social sciences say “no”, pointing at the diversity of moral beliefs. Most philosophers (along with people of moral conviction) feel that there must be some deeper source of morality than the trends and fads of culture. Unfortunately, the nature and source of such standards has remained something of a mystery. Recent work on the evolution of norms has changed this picture dramatically. Evolutionary explanation of the emergence of moral norms proceeds in stages,