Morality for Humans ─ Ethical Understanding from the Perspective of Cognitive Science

Mark Johnson’s book, Morality for Humans, argues that our traditional views of morality and moral reasoning are seriously flawed because they rely on faulty and outdated views of human nature, moral psychology, and reasoning. He further argues that moral fundamentalism is not only logically and epistemologically flawed but that it is also morally wrong because it blocks the path of moral inquiry and stifles moral thinking and effective communication about morality. Johnson gives a picture of morality as essentially involved in open inquiry that requires imagination rather than fixed, absolute rules. In making his case, Johnson relies on two main resources: contemporary cognitive science and the moral theory of the philosopher John Dewey, whose major works in moral theory belong to the first part of the twentieth century but, as Johnson argues, are remarkably relevant to philosophical thought today and deeply congruent with current trends in contemporary cognitive science concerning mind and morality. Johnson’s book will be of importance to specialists interested in contemporary moral theory and in particular in the relationship of cognitive science to moral theory. It will also appeal to some specialists in philosophy of mind.