Moral psychology: An Introduction

259 Pages·2016·2.11 MB·English

by  Mark Alfano

Table of Contents
Dedication
Epigraph
Title page
Copyright page
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1  Setting the stage
2  Patiency
3  Agency
4  Sociality
5  Reflexivity and temporality
6  Comparing emphases of major normative theories
7  Is and ought
Further readings
Study questions
Notes
1: Preferences
1  The function of preferences: prediction, explanation,
planning, and evaluation
2  The role of preferences in moral psychology
3  Preference reversals and choice blindness
4  Philosophical implications of the indeterminacy and
instability of preferences
5  Future directions in the moral psychology of preferences
Further readings
Study questions
Notes
2: Responsibility
1  Some incidents
2  The moral psychology of responsibility
3  Implicit bias
4  Philosophical implications of implicit bias
5  Future directions in the moral psychology of implicit bias
and responsibility
Further readings
Study questions
Notes
3: Emotion
1  Introduction
2  The role of emotions in moral psychology
3  The neuroscience of emotions
4  Philosophical implications of the cognitive and affective
neuroscience of emotion
5  Future directions in the moral psychology of emotion
Further readings
Study questions
Notes
4: Character
1  Introduction
2  The role of character in moral psychology
3  The person-situation debate in personality and social
psychology
4  Philosophical implications of personality and social
psychology
5  Future directions in the moral psychology of character
Further readings
Study questions
Notes
5: Disagreement
1  Introduction
2  The role of disagreement in moral psychology
3  The science of cross-cultural disagreement
4  Philosophical implications and future directions of the
psychology of disagreement
5  Future directions in the moral psychology of disagreement
Further readings
Study questions
Notes
Afterword
Glossary
References
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Table I.1  Agency x patiency examples
Table 1.1  Choice matrix
Table 2.1  Illustrative concepts of control on three dimensions
Table 2.2  Yearly salaries for victims and beneficiaries of implicit
bias
Table 2.3  Lifetime expectations of unfair brutalization for victims
of and beneficiaries of implicit bias
List of Illustrations
Figure I.1  Agent–patient relation
Figure I.2  Agent–patient relation
Figure I.3  Recursively embedded agent–patient relations
Figure I.4  Doubly recursively embedded agent–patient relations
Figure 1.1
Figure 2.1  Recursively embedded agent–patient relations
Figure 3.1  Surprise
Figure 3.2  Disgust
Figure 3.3  Fear
Figure 3.4  Anger
Figure 3.5  Joy
Figure 3.6  Sadness
Figure 3.7  Contempt
Figure 3.8  Recursively embedded emotions
Figure 3.9  Your anger at me
Figure 3.10  Anger and guilt
Figure 3.11  Anger and indignation
Figure 4.1  Target domains, relevant emotions, and attendant
virtues, vices of deficiency, and vices of excess
Figure 5.1  Slightly different weightings of shared values
Figure 5.2  Very different weightings of mostly shared values
Figure 5.3  Completely disjoint values
Dedication
For EJA (1983–2015)
“The charm of knowledge would be modest if not for the fact that,
on the way to her, so much shame had to be overcome.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (translated from the German by the author)

Copyright page
Copyright © Mark Alfano 2016
The right of Mark Alfano to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in
accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2016 by Polity Press
Polity Press
65 Bridge Street
Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press
350 Main Street
Malden, MA 02148, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism
and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-7224-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-7225-0(pb)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Alfano, Mark, 1983– author.
    Moral psychology : an introduction / Mark Alfano.
        pages  cm
    Includes bibliographical references and index.
    ISBN 978-0-7456-7224-3 (hardback : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-0-7456-7225-0 (pbk. : alk.
paper)    1.  Ethics–Psychological aspects.    2.  Moral development.    I.  Title.
    BJ45.A44 2016
    170.1′9–dc23
         2015026465
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