Moral Imagination: Implications of Cognitive Science for Ethics
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Book Overview
Using path-breaking discoveries of cognitive science, Mark Johnson argues that humans are fundamentally imaginative moral animals, challenging the view that morality is simply a system of universal laws dictated by reason. According to the Western moral tradition, we make ethical decisions by applying universal laws to concrete situations. But Johnson shows how research in cognitive science undermines this view and reveals that imagination has an essential role in ethical deliberation. Expanding his innovative studies of human reason in Metaphors We Live By and The Body in the Mind, Johnson provides the tools for more practical, realistic, and constructive moral reflection.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0226401693
ISBN13:9780226401690
Release Date:November 1994
Publisher:University of Chicago Press
Length:302 Pages
Weight:0.96 lbs.
Dimensions:0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"
Customer Reviews
1 rating
Imagining the Consequences
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 28 years ago
This is a very important book; though aimed at philosophers and the cognitive science communities, most general readers should enjoy it. Here are several quotes: "[There is] a deep tension and dissonance within our cultural understanding of morality, for we try to live according to a view that is inconsistent with how human beings actually make sense of things, I am trying to point out this deep tension, to diagnose the source of the dissonance, and to offer a more psychologically realistic view of moral understanding -- a view we could live by and that would help us live better lives." (p.19). "Narrative is not just an explanatory device, but is actually constitutive of the way we experience things. No moral theory can be adequate if it does not take into account the narrative character of our experience." (p. 11
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