The new irrationalists would have you believe that “moral reasoning is really just a servant masquerading as the high priest” in the “temple of morality,” whereas “the emotions” in fact wield all the power (Haidt Reference Haidt, Davidson, Scherer and Goldsmith2003, p. 852; see also Prinz Reference Prinz and Matthew Liao2016). Reasoning, they tell us, rarely plays a role in the formation of moral judgments, though it may sometimes be pressed into service by affects and emotions to provide “post hoc” justifications for judgments that the agent would have made anyway (Haidt Reference Haidt2001, p. 814). In Regard for Reason in the Moral Mind, May (Reference May2018) contends, to the contrary, that reasoning is causally efficacious and prevalent, though of course also prone to various errors and biases. Settling this debate requires us to establish a tentative characterization of reason or reasoning. In this commentary, I show that a promising new theory of reasoning – the erotetic theory – corroborates May's position. Indeed, May concedes too much to the new irrationalists, who rely on an empirical base that does not replicate and is inconsistent with the erotetic theory.
According to May's initial characterization (p. 8, sect. 1.2.2, para. 3), reasoning is “a kind of inference in which beliefs or similar propositional attitudes are formed on the basis of pre-existing ones.” This is a helpful start, in that it focuses on the process of reasoning rather than an alleged faculty of reason. Much mischief has been done by positing a reified and rarefied faculty of reason, and even more damage has been done (e.g., by Kant in the second Critique) by positing a domain-specific faculty of moral or practical reason. Moral reasoning is just a species of domain-general reasoning; it is reasoning that matters morally or is about moral matters (Cushman Reference Cushman2013).
Furthermore, the process of reasoning is so unmysterious as to appear mundane. A reason is simply a consideration that counts in favor of adopting an attitude or a course of action. For example, a doxastic reason is a consideration that counts in favor of adopting a particular belief, a desiderative reason is a consideration that counts in favor of adopting a particular desire, and a practical reason is a consideration that counts in favor of performing or omitting a particular action. The process of reasoning is then a matter of being sensitive to such considerations when they are relevant and putting them together in sensible ways.
Two of the main arguments offered by the new irrationalists for their pessimistic conclusions rely on the premises that reasoning is necessarily conscious and that it is contrary to or at least in tension with emotion. They then aim to show that unconscious or emotional states and processes influence or guide many moral judgments. May opposes both of these propositions, and for good reason. First, a mental state or process is conscious when one is aware of oneself as embodying it (Rosenthal Reference Rosenthal2005). Someone of course could be aware of themselves as going through the process of reasoning (i.e., could be aware of themselves as asking and answering questions), but such self-awareness is not necessary or guaranteed. May (Ch. 3) is therefore right to argue that reasoning need not be conscious, which disarms one of the central arguments offered by the new irrationalists.
Second, emotions implement and up-regulate people's sensitivities to a range of associated considerations. For example, fear makes one more sensitive to threats and dangers (Brady Reference Brady2013; Tappolet Reference Tappolet and Goldie2010), whereas disgust makes one more sensitive to impurities and corruption. Emotions thus play a central role in reasoning: alerting us to considerations that count in favor of adopting attitudes or courses of action. Emotions are one of the main ways in which reasoning – including moral reasoning – is implemented (Alfano Reference Alfano2016). May (Ch. 2) is therefore also right to argue that emotions should not be seen as irrational or arational disruptors of reasoning, which disarms another of the central arguments offered by the new irrationalists.
This is not to say that people's emotional reactions are always appropriate or somehow infallible. Instead, emotions tend to make people especially sensitive to some reasons and less sensitive to others. As such, an emotional reaction can make someone oversensitive to some considerations and undersensitive to others. However, even in the case of disgust, one of the poster boys of the new irrationalists, such oversensitivity has at most a small impact on moral judgments (Landy & Goodwin Reference Landy and Goodwin2015). Studies purporting to show large spillover effects from incidental affect or emotion to moral judgments do not replicate. But even if the influence of disgust or some other emotion on moral judgments makes us worry, that does not mean we should attempt to exorcise our sentiments. Just as inquiry is likely to go awry if one only asks a single question, so moral reasoning is likely to go awry if one only weighs reasons prompted by a single emotion. We are not forced to conclude, though, that inquirers should never ask questions, or that moral reasoners should not allow their emotions to provide inputs to their reasoning processes. Instead, we need to ask more and more diverse questions in our inquiries, and we need to experience more and more diverse emotions in our moral reasoning. Reasoning works best not when we wall ourselves off from our emotions but when we cycle through a range of them, letting each make its contribution before coming to an all-things-considered judgment or decision (Alfano Reference Alfano2017).
This analogy between inquiry and reasoning is instructive. Emotions prompt us to ask questions about the normative properties they are associated with. Fear leads us to ask, “Where is the danger”? Disgust leads us to ask, “Where is the corruption”? Anger leads us to ask, “Where is the insult or offense”? These are essential first steps in thinking through whether a moral wrong has been committed. According to the erotetic theory of reasoning, “reasoning proceeds by treating successive premises as questions and maximally strong answers to them,” and “systematically asking a certain type of question as we interpret each new premise allows us to reason in a classically valid way” (Koralus & Mascarenhas Reference Koralus and Mascarenhas2013, p. 318). To ask a question is to pose a set of mutually non-compossible options and attempt to settle on one of them. These options may exhaust the logical space, but in many cases they do not. If people ask enough and the right questions, their reasoning processes will be valid. However, if they ask the wrong questions or too few questions, they systematically fall into the errors and illusory inferences documented by cognitive scientists (e.g., Johnson-Laird Reference Johnson-Laird, Rips and Adler2008; Khemlani et al. Reference Khemlani, Orenes and Johnson-Laird2012; Rips Reference Rips1994; Walsh & Johnson-Laird Reference Walsh and Johnson-Laird2004).
In the case of moral reasoning, asking enough and the right questions is typically prompted by cycling through a range of emotions. Poor reasoning – including poor moral reasoning prompted by a cramped emotional set – thus derives in many cases from a failure to express the intellectual virtues of creativity (Koralus & Mascarenhas Reference Koralus and Mascarenhas2013, p. 324) and curiosity (Koralus & Alfano Reference Koralus, Alfano, Bonnefon and Trémolière2017, pp. 92–94). In my paper with Koralus, we showed that some of the same systematic patterns of error and bias crop up in untutored moral reasoning that have already been documented in untutored non-moral reasoning (Shafir Reference Shafir1993). This suggests that moral reasoning is of a piece with the rest of reasoning, and that the dispositions that foster good non-moral reasoning should also foster good moral reasoning. Furthermore, people exhibit the aptitude and skill associated with such reasoning to different degrees. Individual difference measures of both creativity (Silvia et al. Reference Silvia, Wigert, Reiter-Palmon and Kaufman2012) and curiosity (Iurino et al. Reference Iurino, Robinson, Christen, Stey, Alfano, Inan, Watson, Whitcomb and Yigit2018) have recently been validated, and these may turn out to be useful covariates in the study of moral reasoning. In addition, we may reasonably hope that it is possible to acquire and cultivate these dispositions over time: Just as people can learn and be taught to ask more and better questions (Watson Reference Watson, Inan, Watson, Whitcomb and Yigit2018), so they can learn and be taught to wield their emotional sensitivities in the service of creative and curious moral reasoning. If this is right, then May should take comfort not only in the fact that people engage in moral inference, but also in the facts that, spurred by their emotions, they engage in the corrigible activity of asking and answering of moral questions. There is much work to be done in establishing how people go about asking moral question and under what conditions they best answer them, but we no longer need to quaver before the new irrationalists.
The new irrationalists would have you believe that “moral reasoning is really just a servant masquerading as the high priest” in the “temple of morality,” whereas “the emotions” in fact wield all the power (Haidt Reference Haidt, Davidson, Scherer and Goldsmith2003, p. 852; see also Prinz Reference Prinz and Matthew Liao2016). Reasoning, they tell us, rarely plays a role in the formation of moral judgments, though it may sometimes be pressed into service by affects and emotions to provide “post hoc” justifications for judgments that the agent would have made anyway (Haidt Reference Haidt2001, p. 814). In Regard for Reason in the Moral Mind, May (Reference May2018) contends, to the contrary, that reasoning is causally efficacious and prevalent, though of course also prone to various errors and biases. Settling this debate requires us to establish a tentative characterization of reason or reasoning. In this commentary, I show that a promising new theory of reasoning – the erotetic theory – corroborates May's position. Indeed, May concedes too much to the new irrationalists, who rely on an empirical base that does not replicate and is inconsistent with the erotetic theory.
According to May's initial characterization (p. 8, sect. 1.2.2, para. 3), reasoning is “a kind of inference in which beliefs or similar propositional attitudes are formed on the basis of pre-existing ones.” This is a helpful start, in that it focuses on the process of reasoning rather than an alleged faculty of reason. Much mischief has been done by positing a reified and rarefied faculty of reason, and even more damage has been done (e.g., by Kant in the second Critique) by positing a domain-specific faculty of moral or practical reason. Moral reasoning is just a species of domain-general reasoning; it is reasoning that matters morally or is about moral matters (Cushman Reference Cushman2013).
Furthermore, the process of reasoning is so unmysterious as to appear mundane. A reason is simply a consideration that counts in favor of adopting an attitude or a course of action. For example, a doxastic reason is a consideration that counts in favor of adopting a particular belief, a desiderative reason is a consideration that counts in favor of adopting a particular desire, and a practical reason is a consideration that counts in favor of performing or omitting a particular action. The process of reasoning is then a matter of being sensitive to such considerations when they are relevant and putting them together in sensible ways.
Two of the main arguments offered by the new irrationalists for their pessimistic conclusions rely on the premises that reasoning is necessarily conscious and that it is contrary to or at least in tension with emotion. They then aim to show that unconscious or emotional states and processes influence or guide many moral judgments. May opposes both of these propositions, and for good reason. First, a mental state or process is conscious when one is aware of oneself as embodying it (Rosenthal Reference Rosenthal2005). Someone of course could be aware of themselves as going through the process of reasoning (i.e., could be aware of themselves as asking and answering questions), but such self-awareness is not necessary or guaranteed. May (Ch. 3) is therefore right to argue that reasoning need not be conscious, which disarms one of the central arguments offered by the new irrationalists.
Second, emotions implement and up-regulate people's sensitivities to a range of associated considerations. For example, fear makes one more sensitive to threats and dangers (Brady Reference Brady2013; Tappolet Reference Tappolet and Goldie2010), whereas disgust makes one more sensitive to impurities and corruption. Emotions thus play a central role in reasoning: alerting us to considerations that count in favor of adopting attitudes or courses of action. Emotions are one of the main ways in which reasoning – including moral reasoning – is implemented (Alfano Reference Alfano2016). May (Ch. 2) is therefore also right to argue that emotions should not be seen as irrational or arational disruptors of reasoning, which disarms another of the central arguments offered by the new irrationalists.
This is not to say that people's emotional reactions are always appropriate or somehow infallible. Instead, emotions tend to make people especially sensitive to some reasons and less sensitive to others. As such, an emotional reaction can make someone oversensitive to some considerations and undersensitive to others. However, even in the case of disgust, one of the poster boys of the new irrationalists, such oversensitivity has at most a small impact on moral judgments (Landy & Goodwin Reference Landy and Goodwin2015). Studies purporting to show large spillover effects from incidental affect or emotion to moral judgments do not replicate. But even if the influence of disgust or some other emotion on moral judgments makes us worry, that does not mean we should attempt to exorcise our sentiments. Just as inquiry is likely to go awry if one only asks a single question, so moral reasoning is likely to go awry if one only weighs reasons prompted by a single emotion. We are not forced to conclude, though, that inquirers should never ask questions, or that moral reasoners should not allow their emotions to provide inputs to their reasoning processes. Instead, we need to ask more and more diverse questions in our inquiries, and we need to experience more and more diverse emotions in our moral reasoning. Reasoning works best not when we wall ourselves off from our emotions but when we cycle through a range of them, letting each make its contribution before coming to an all-things-considered judgment or decision (Alfano Reference Alfano2017).
This analogy between inquiry and reasoning is instructive. Emotions prompt us to ask questions about the normative properties they are associated with. Fear leads us to ask, “Where is the danger”? Disgust leads us to ask, “Where is the corruption”? Anger leads us to ask, “Where is the insult or offense”? These are essential first steps in thinking through whether a moral wrong has been committed. According to the erotetic theory of reasoning, “reasoning proceeds by treating successive premises as questions and maximally strong answers to them,” and “systematically asking a certain type of question as we interpret each new premise allows us to reason in a classically valid way” (Koralus & Mascarenhas Reference Koralus and Mascarenhas2013, p. 318). To ask a question is to pose a set of mutually non-compossible options and attempt to settle on one of them. These options may exhaust the logical space, but in many cases they do not. If people ask enough and the right questions, their reasoning processes will be valid. However, if they ask the wrong questions or too few questions, they systematically fall into the errors and illusory inferences documented by cognitive scientists (e.g., Johnson-Laird Reference Johnson-Laird, Rips and Adler2008; Khemlani et al. Reference Khemlani, Orenes and Johnson-Laird2012; Rips Reference Rips1994; Walsh & Johnson-Laird Reference Walsh and Johnson-Laird2004).
In the case of moral reasoning, asking enough and the right questions is typically prompted by cycling through a range of emotions. Poor reasoning – including poor moral reasoning prompted by a cramped emotional set – thus derives in many cases from a failure to express the intellectual virtues of creativity (Koralus & Mascarenhas Reference Koralus and Mascarenhas2013, p. 324) and curiosity (Koralus & Alfano Reference Koralus, Alfano, Bonnefon and Trémolière2017, pp. 92–94). In my paper with Koralus, we showed that some of the same systematic patterns of error and bias crop up in untutored moral reasoning that have already been documented in untutored non-moral reasoning (Shafir Reference Shafir1993). This suggests that moral reasoning is of a piece with the rest of reasoning, and that the dispositions that foster good non-moral reasoning should also foster good moral reasoning. Furthermore, people exhibit the aptitude and skill associated with such reasoning to different degrees. Individual difference measures of both creativity (Silvia et al. Reference Silvia, Wigert, Reiter-Palmon and Kaufman2012) and curiosity (Iurino et al. Reference Iurino, Robinson, Christen, Stey, Alfano, Inan, Watson, Whitcomb and Yigit2018) have recently been validated, and these may turn out to be useful covariates in the study of moral reasoning. In addition, we may reasonably hope that it is possible to acquire and cultivate these dispositions over time: Just as people can learn and be taught to ask more and better questions (Watson Reference Watson, Inan, Watson, Whitcomb and Yigit2018), so they can learn and be taught to wield their emotional sensitivities in the service of creative and curious moral reasoning. If this is right, then May should take comfort not only in the fact that people engage in moral inference, but also in the facts that, spurred by their emotions, they engage in the corrigible activity of asking and answering of moral questions. There is much work to be done in establishing how people go about asking moral question and under what conditions they best answer them, but we no longer need to quaver before the new irrationalists.