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 unconscious, affective, moral heuristics that guide our reactions to morally charged situations and our moral behaviour, and that if we are asked to reason we do so only after we have made the decision.

Example: 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. Many people have a very strong negative reaction to this incest story, yet they cannot explain why under Kohlberg's theory of moral reasoning.

External links

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