Moral Imagination: Implications of Cognitive Science for EthicsUsing path-breaking discoveries of cognitive science, Mark Johnson argues that humans are fundamentally imaginative moral animals, challenging the view that morality is simply a system of universal laws dictated by reason. According to the Western moral tradition, we make ethical decisions by applying universal laws to concrete situations. But Johnson shows how research in cognitive science undermines this view and reveals that imagination has an essential role in ethical deliberation. Expanding his innovative studies of human reason in Metaphors We Live By and The Body in the Mind, Johnson provides the tools for more practical, realistic, and constructive moral reflection. |
Contents
| 1 | |
The Moral Law Folk Theory | 13 |
2 Metaphoric Morality | 32 |
3 The Metaphoric Basis of Moral Theory | 63 |
4 Beyond Rules | 78 |
Our Enlightenment Legacy | 108 |
6 Whats Wrong with the Objectivist Self | 126 |
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Common terms and phrases
absolutist action argue argument assumptions basic basis bodily categorical imperative claim cognitive sciences conception of morality conceptual metaphor constraints context criticism cultural defined desire determine dimensions domain Donagan emotivism Enlightenment ethics evaluation existence Faculty Psychology frames freedom fundamental give human reason idealized cognitive models identity image schemas imaginative structures indeterminacy interactions judgments Kant Kant's Kantian kind Law folk theory lives MacIntyre marriage Martha Nussbaum means metaphysical moral absolutism moral agent moral concepts moral deliberation moral imagination Moral Law theory moral objectivism moral philosophy moral principles moral reasoning moral relativism moral theory moral tradition moral understanding motivation narrative nature nonprototypical notion objectivist objectivity ourselves Owen Flanagan particular person possible practical reason presupposes problem prototype structure psychology pure purposes rational Rawls relativism requires role sense shared situation social story theory of morality things tion tive typically universal moral values various view of moral well-being