Cognitive Science, Moral Reasoning, and the Theological Suspicion of Ethics
This essay explores some theological implications of cognitive-science research into moral reasoning. Evolutionary theorizing argues that human morality originated as an adaptation that enabled our evolutionary ancestors to function as members of a social species. Neuroscientific experiments suggest...
| Published in: | Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Philosophy Documentation Center
[2016]
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| In: |
Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics
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| IxTheo Classification: | KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history KDD Protestant Church NBE Anthropology NCA Ethics VA Philosophy ZD Psychology |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | This essay explores some theological implications of cognitive-science research into moral reasoning. Evolutionary theorizing argues that human morality originated as an adaptation that enabled our evolutionary ancestors to function as members of a social species. Neuroscientific experiments suggest that utilitarian responses to the moral dilemmas known as trolley problems involve more activity in brain areas associated with reason and less in areas associated with emotion than do nonutilitarian responses. According to Peter Singer and Joshua Greene, these two areas of research, taken together, support utilitarianism. They might therefore also seem to challenge nonutilitarian theological ethics. However, drawing on Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, it is argued instead that cognitive-science research on moral reasoning could offer a valuable hermeneutic of suspicion concerning ethics as a (merely) human project. Christians can welcome this critical function as an aid in the theological reconstruction of ethics without thereby being committed to the inferences drawn by Singer and Greene. |
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| ISSN: | 2326-2176 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Society of Christian Ethics, Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/sce.2016.0018 |