Moral understanding, affect, and the imagination

Bibliographic Data

ID21335367
AuthorsDaniel Vanello (0000-0002-5688-4330, University of Warwick, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume68
Issue2
Pages183-208
Publication date2025-02-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInquiry (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-174X • E-ISSN: 1502-3923
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0020174x.2022.2077431
OpenAlexW4280630685
LanguageEN
References cited32

The aim of this paper is to defend the view that we need to conceive our moral understanding as in part constituted by our affective and imaginative abilities suitably related. The core argument is that in order to be able to understand and explain the truth of a given moral proposition, we need to understand what the relevant moral concepts refer to, that is, we need to understand the semantic value of the relevant moral concepts. In the moral domain, I argue, this involves appealing to our affective and imaginative abilities suitably related. My account provides a genuinely new alternative to current accounts of moral understanding because it brings in both affect and the imagination central stage. Moreover, my account is a defense of the view that our moral understanding is a distinctive kind of understanding not reducible to non-moral kinds of understanding. The upshot of my argument is a new position in questions about the nature of moral understanding that focuses on the peculiarities of understanding in the moral domain

Affect (linguistics) · Argument (complex analysis) · Epistemology · Moral authority · Moral development · Moral disengagement · Moral psychology · Moral reasoning · Proposition · Social cognitive theory of morality · Value (mathematics) · Computer Science · Ethics in medical practice · Free Will and Agency · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social Psychology

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