Okay, good idea, let’s taboo moral judgement. So your definition from the great grandparent was (I’m paraphrasing) “the activity of the brain in response to what are colloquially referred to as moral judgements.” What should we replace ‘moral judgement’ with in this definition?
I assume it’s clear that we can’t replace it with ‘the activity of the brain...’
(ETA: For the record, if tabooing in this way is your strategy, I think you’re with me in rejecting Luke’s claim that psychology has settled a the externalism vs. internalism question. At the very best, psychology has rejected the question, not solved it. But much more likely, since philosophers probably won’t taboo ‘moral judgement’ the way you have (i.e. in terms of brain states) psychology is simply discussing a different topic.)
″...in response to questions about whether it is right to kill people in various situations, or take things from people in various situations, or more generally to impose one’s will on another person in a way that would have had significance in the ancestral environment.” (This is based on my own intuition that people process judgments about ancestral-environment-type things like murder differently from the way people process judgments about non-ancestral-environment-type things like copyright law. I could be wrong about this.)
That’s fine, but it doesn’t address the problem I described in the great great grandparent of this reply. Either you mean the brain activity of a healthy person, or the brain activity common to healthy and brain-damaged people. Even if philosophers intend to be discussing brain processes (which, in almost every case, they do not) then you’ve assumed an answer, not given one.
But in any case, this way of tabooing ‘moral judgement’ makes it very clear that the question the psychologist is discussing is not the question the philosopher is discussing.
Well, this isn’t something I’m an expert in. Most of my knowledge of the topic comes from this SEP article, which I would in any case just be summarizing if I tried to explain the debate. The article is much clearer than I’m likely to be. So you’re probably just better off reading that, especially the intro and section 3: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-motivation/
That article uses the phrase ‘moral judgement’ of course, but anyway I think tabooing the term (rather than explaining and then using it) is probably counterproductive.
Okay, good idea, let’s taboo moral judgement. So your definition from the great grandparent was (I’m paraphrasing) “the activity of the brain in response to what are colloquially referred to as moral judgements.” What should we replace ‘moral judgement’ with in this definition?
I assume it’s clear that we can’t replace it with ‘the activity of the brain...’
(ETA: For the record, if tabooing in this way is your strategy, I think you’re with me in rejecting Luke’s claim that psychology has settled a the externalism vs. internalism question. At the very best, psychology has rejected the question, not solved it. But much more likely, since philosophers probably won’t taboo ‘moral judgement’ the way you have (i.e. in terms of brain states) psychology is simply discussing a different topic.)
″...in response to questions about whether it is right to kill people in various situations, or take things from people in various situations, or more generally to impose one’s will on another person in a way that would have had significance in the ancestral environment.” (This is based on my own intuition that people process judgments about ancestral-environment-type things like murder differently from the way people process judgments about non-ancestral-environment-type things like copyright law. I could be wrong about this.)
How would a philosopher taboo “moral judgment”?
That’s fine, but it doesn’t address the problem I described in the great great grandparent of this reply. Either you mean the brain activity of a healthy person, or the brain activity common to healthy and brain-damaged people. Even if philosophers intend to be discussing brain processes (which, in almost every case, they do not) then you’ve assumed an answer, not given one.
But in any case, this way of tabooing ‘moral judgement’ makes it very clear that the question the psychologist is discussing is not the question the philosopher is discussing.
In that case I don’t understand the question the philosopher is discussing. Can you explain it to me without using the phrase “moral judgment”?
Well, this isn’t something I’m an expert in. Most of my knowledge of the topic comes from this SEP article, which I would in any case just be summarizing if I tried to explain the debate. The article is much clearer than I’m likely to be. So you’re probably just better off reading that, especially the intro and section 3: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-motivation/
That article uses the phrase ‘moral judgement’ of course, but anyway I think tabooing the term (rather than explaining and then using it) is probably counterproductive.
I’d of course be happy to discuss the article.