1 Introduction Morality is one of the few topics in academe endowed with its own protective spell. A biologist is not blinded by her biological nature to the workings of biology. An economist is not confused by his own economic activity when he tries to understand the workings of markets 1. But students of morality are often biased by their own moral commitments. Morality is so contested and so...

Traditional conservative arguments against the possibility of major moral progress or fundamental institutional reform relied on under-evidenced assumptions about the limitations of human nature. A number of contemporary thinkers from a variety of disciplines have attempted to fill this empirical gap in the conservative argument by appealing to evolutionary theory. These “evoconservatives” infe...

1 Introduction Morality is one of the few topics in academe endowed with its own protective spell. A biologist is not blinded by her biological nature to the workings of biology. An economist is not confused by his own economic activity when he tries to understand the workings of markets 1. But students of morality are often biased by their own moral commitments. Morality is so contested and so...

It appears that there are two universal dimensions of social cognition, capturing a person’s intention to be good or to do good things (i.e., morality) and his or her capacity to carry out his or her intentions (i.e., competence, or Heider’s “can”). Perceivers are strongly biased towards the former dimension, as they are more likely to seek out and act upon information concerning a person’s mor...

Ever since Aristotle, moral philosophers, including David Hume, Adam Smith, and Edward Westermarck, have argued that there are two distinct layers to human morality: (1) moral emotions or sentiments and (2) the capacity for moral judgment and reasoning. We tend to focus on this first layer when we compare humans with other animals because it is closer to direct behavioural expression, hence eas...

In this commentary, I critically discuss the respective views of Gert and Beauchamp-Childress on the nature of so-called common morality and its promise for enriching ethical reflection within the field of bioethics. Although I endorse Beauchamp and Childress' shift from an emphasis on ethical theory as the source of moral norms to an emphasis on common morality, I question whether rouging up c...