道德原则和想象力在道德推理中的作用——来自认知科学的启示

The Role of Moral Principles and Imagination in Moral Reasoning-Revelations from the cognitive science

理性主义认为道德推理是规则遵守的行为,是将终极道德原则适用于具体道德情境的过程,相对主义认为道德判断具有文化相对性,所以不存在普遍有效的道德推理形式。认知科学进路的道德推理理论认为抽象的道德概念在本质上是隐喻性的、非理性的,道德推理并不单纯是将抽象的道德原则应用于具体情境的过程,而是建立在对道德隐喻来源域经验的想象性理解基础之上。现实的道德推理过程是对道德想象力和道德原则的结合,没有道德想象力,道德原则是空洞的,没有道德原则,道德想象力是任意的。认知科学进路的道德推理观克服了理性主义和相对主义的二元对立,有助于正确认知和评估道德推理在道德进步过程中的作用。

In the view of Rationalism,Moral Reasoning is the behavior of obeying rules and the process of adapting ultimate moral principles to concrete morals situations,while in terms of Relativism,moral judgment has cultural relativity and thus there is no such a form of moral reasoning that is universally valid.Forwarding on the road of Cognitive Science,moral reasoning theory holds that in essence,moral concepts,as they are abstract,are metaphorical and irrational.Meanwhile,instead of merely being a process of applying abstract moral principles to specific situations,moral reasoning is based on the imaginative understanding of the experience in the source domain of moral metaphor.In reality,the moral reasoning process derives from the combination of moral imagination and moral principle.Without moral imagination,the moral principle is inane,while the former is random in the absence of the latter.The moral reasoning view on the forwarding way of Cognitive Science,as it can overcome the binary opposition of Rationalism and Relativism,is conducive to accurately recognizing and evaluating the role of moral reasoning in moral pro-gress.