Haidt, Jonathan

The Moral Emotions

Oxford

Oxford University Press

2003

"A few theorists have even begun to claim that the emotions are in fact in charge of the temple of morality and that moral reasoning is really just a servant masquerading as the high priest."

Yet as the cognitive revolution matured, researchers recognized the growing need for a parallel "affect revolution" (Tomkins, 1981). Table 45.1 shows that this revolution has indeed taken place. for the moral emotions have been growth stocks in the 1980s and 1990s. Although the number of journal articles on morality and moral reasoning rose in the 1980s and then began to decline in the 1990s, the number of articles on emotion in general, and on the moral emotions in particular, has increased greatly. Table 45.1 shows that the "old academy" stocks of empathy and guilt, which were the most widely studied moral emotions in the 1970s, have not grown in the 1990s, whereas the "new academy" stocks of anger, shame. and disgust have racked up impressive gains in scholarship. As research on the moral emotions has broadened beyond empathy and guilt, a new appreciation has arisen of what they as a group can do. A few theorists have even begun to claim that the emotions are in fact in charge of the temple of morality and that moral reasoning is really just a servant masquerading as the high priest (Haidt, 2001; [End Page 852] Wilson. 1993). This chapter is a report from the hill. including a census of the moral emotions and a discussion of the ways in which moral emotions and moral reasoning work together in the creation of human morality.
(pp. 852-3)

Population::Servant Population::High Priest

Reading April 6, 2009 NYT Op-Ed, "The End of Philosophy," by David Brooks. <Link>

Haidt, Jonathan. "The Moral Emotions." Handbook of Affective Sciences. R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer, & H. H. Goldsmith, eds. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003. pp. 852-870. <Link to Google Books>

04/09/2009