Social intuitionism

Social intuitionism is a movement in moral psychology that arose in contrast to more heavily rationalist theories of morality, like that of Lawrence Kohlberg. Kohlberg developed a stage theory of moral reasoning that he claimed accounts for people's moral behavior. More sophisticated reasoning, he asserted^{[citation needed]}, should lead one to more consistent moral action, because one realizes that moral principles are prescriptive in nature and so demand action from the self.

Jonathan Haidt (2001) greatly de-emphasizes the role of reasoning in reaching moral conclusions. Haidt asserts that moral judgment is primarily given rise to by intuition with reasoning playing a very marginalized role in most of our moral decision-making. Conscious thought-processes serves as a kind of post hoc justification of our decisions.

His main evidence comes from studies of "moral dumbfounding" where people have strong moral reactions but fail to establish any kind of rational principle to explain their reaction^{[citation needed]}. Haidt suggests that we have affective heuristics which are unconscious^{[citation needed]} that generate our reactions to morally charged situations and our moral behaviour. He suggests that if people reason about morality, it is independent of processes causing moral decisions to be made^{[citation needed]}.

An example situation in which moral intuitions are activated is as follows: Imagine that a brother and sister sleep together once. No one else knows, no harm befalls either one, and both feel it brought them closer as siblings. Most people imagining this incest scenario have very strong negative reaction, yet cannot explain why.^{[citation needed]}.

External links

• Haidt, J. (2001). "The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment." Psychological Review. 108, 814-834.