Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2006 Dec;1(3):214-20. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsl026.
Drawing on an analogy to language, I argue that a suite of novel questions emerge when we consider our moral faculty in a similar light. In particular, I suggest the possibility that our moral judgments are derived from unconscious, intuitive processes that operate over the causal-intentional structure of actions and their consequences. On this model, we are endowed with a moral faculty that generates judgments about permissible and forbidden actions prior to the involvement of our emotions and systems of conscious, rational deliberation. This framing of the problem sets up specific predictions about the role of particular neural structures and psychological processes in the generation of moral judgments as well as in the generation of moral behavior. I sketch the details of these predictions and point to relevant data that speak to the validity of thinking of our moral intuitions as grounded in a moral organ.
我认为，从语言类比的角度来看，当我们以类似的方式来思考我们的道德能力时，会出现一系列新的问题。特别是，我提出了这样一种可能性，即我们的道德判断可能来源于无意识的、直觉的过程，这些过程作用于行动及其后果的因果意向结构。在这种模式下，我们拥有一种道德能力，它在情感和有意识的、理性的思考系统参与之前，对允许和禁止的行为做出判断。这种问题的框架设定了特定的预测，即特定的神经结构和心理过程在产生道德判断以及产生道德行为方面的作用。我简述了这些预测的细节，并指出了相关数据，这些数据表明，将我们的道德直觉视为基于道德器官的观点是有其合理性的。
